![\"Hundreds](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0023a772-614.jpg\"\/)
\nLifeguards on Bondi Beach paid tribute to those killed in the attack last December<\/p>\n
A Jewish lawyer wounded in a mass shooting at Australia’s Bondi Beach discovered that AI-generated images depicting him as a “crisis actor” were proliferating online as he was going into surgery, a royal commission inquiry has heard.<\/p>\n
Arsen Ostrovsky, a Jewish community leader, said a selfie image he had sent to a friend in the aftermath of the antisemitic attack was quickly distorted by AI online to make it appear as if his injuries had been faked.<\/p>\n
His story emerged in hearings of the federal royal commission, the highest level of public inquiry, which was formed after the 14 December attack, Australia’s deadliest in decades.<\/p>\n
During the assault, father-son duo Sajid and Naveed Akram are accused of opening fire on Jewish families celebrating Hanukkah at the country’s most famous beach, killing 15 people.<\/p>\n
Public hearings tasked with probing the factors leading to Australia’s deadliest mass shooting have started to receive testimony about the role social media plays in the spread of antisemitism.<\/p>\n
“It has become increasingly apparent that the online environment and social media platforms in particular are perhaps the most significant factor for the spread of antisemitism,” said assisting counsel Richard Lancaster.<\/p>\n
Mr Ostrovsky, head of the Australia\/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council in Sydney, said his selfie started “spreading like wildfire” after being posted online by his friend.<\/p>\n
The image depicted him lying on the ground with his head bloodied.<\/p>\n
But within hours, AI-generated images were created, with one showing him laughing as a make-up artist touched up the blood on his face.<\/p>\n
\nLifeguards on Bondi Beach paid tribute to those killed in the attack last December<\/p>\n
AI images debunked<\/p>\n
Social media users said the image was of a crisis actor, someone supposedly hired to secretly stage deadly events to advance political agendas – a persistent narrative among conspiracy theorists.<\/p>\n
Mr Ostrovsky said he discovered the disinformation spreading while he was in hospital two days after the attack.<\/p>\n
“I was literally being prepped to go into surgery when I first found out online that was happening,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Ostrovsky said other deepfake images appeared to show him in hospital with his bandages removed, or holding an Academy Award trophy, many of which are still online today.<\/p>\n
Several fact-checking organisations have debunked these images.<\/p>\n
“These images started spreading like wildfire… and then the media started contacting me for a response.”<\/p>\n
Mr Ostrovsky said he had previously experienced antisemitism online, but “after December it became impossible for me to keep up, it essentially became a relentless tsunami of Jew hatred online”, he said.<\/p>\n
Meta responded quickly to remove the false content, but Mr Ostrovsky said he had not had a response from X or YouTube.<\/p>\n
“The cumulative nature of it is overwhelming… it tries to completely erase my experience and my trauma,” Mr Ostrovsky said.<\/p>\n
The commission will also look at social media’s “gaps and weaknesses in the detection and removal of hateful content in a timely manner”, Mr Lancaster said.<\/p>\n
Public hearings will continue through July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Jewish lawyer wounded in a mass shooting at Australia’s Bondi Beach discovered that AI-generated images depicting him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-523846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}