{"id":221613,"date":"2026-01-05T12:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/221613\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T12:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:56:09","slug":"debunking-venezuela-celebration-videos-and-ai-images-of-maduro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/221613\/","title":{"rendered":"Debunking Venezuela celebration videos and AI images of Maduro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How AI images of Maduro emerged within hours of his capturepublished at 11:20 GMT<\/p>\n<p>11:20 GMT<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/24d2d5d4-d458-4196-aaee-113790d4fafc.png.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Thomas Copeland<br \/>BBC Verify Live journalist<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">AI images claiming to show Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in custody after his capture by the US have gained tens of millions of views online.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Maduro was captured by the US in the early hours of Saturday morning. The first fake AI image apparently showing him being escorted off a plane emerging within hours. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The image was not shared by any official US channels, it was instead posted on X by an \u201cAI video art enthusiast\u201d account.We\u2019ve checked it using Google\u2019s SynthID AI-watermark detector, which found it was generated or edited with Google AI. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Three of the fake images with a red AI-generated label\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/e5946232-addc-49c2-9936-72683a2aeda2.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"674\" height=\"800\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">More AI-generated pictures began to spread in the ensuing hours appearing to show more angles of Maduro in custody. Visible watermarks on these images show they originated from an Instagram account called ultravfx, whose profile describes it as being run by a \u201cProfessional in artificial intelligence\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">SynthID says all of these further images were generated or edited with Google AI. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Donald Trump posted the first real photo of Maduro handcuffed aboard the USS Iwo Jima ship on Saturday morning. But even after this real photo was published AI-generated images continued to spread but were updated to include the grey tracksuit worn by Maduro. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Reverse image searches show these updated fakes were first posted on TikTok by a graphic design account. Once again, SynthID AI-watermark detector says these further images were generated or edited with Google AI. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The real image shared by Trump on the left and four AI-generated images with a red label on the right\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/8de8d7be-8bda-42f2-8e23-8da04448644e.png.webp.webp\"  width=\"1600\" height=\"1268\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How AI images of Maduro emerged within hours of his capturepublished at 11:20 GMT 11:20 GMT Thomas CopelandBBC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-221613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}