{"id":253132,"date":"2026-01-26T22:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T22:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/253132\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T22:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T22:28:07","slug":"officials-warning-after-ai-images-of-mt-maunganui-slip-spread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/253132\/","title":{"rendered":"Officials’ warning after AI images of Mt Maunganui slip spread"},"content":{"rendered":"

Officials are warning people of artificial images circulating online claiming to capture the fallout of last week’s weather, including the Mount Maunganui slip<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By Lauren Crimp of rnz.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\n

Images on TikTok show scenes of destruction with mud and wreckage not actually visible at the site – with captions like “Mount Maunganui Campground. Prayers for those possibly trapped”.<\/p>\n

They depict destroyed tents and campervans – but also some seemingly completely unscathed amidst the ruin surrounding them – as well as a raging waterfall of brown water rushing down a mountain, and emergency workers digging.<\/p>\n

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said it was aware some AI imagery “relating to the recent tragic weather events” was being shared online.<\/p>\n

Follow 1News’ live updates of the recovery efforts at Mt Maunganui here<\/a><\/p>\n

“It is important that the public has trust and confidence in reliable and accurate emergency information channels,” it said.<\/p>\n

“In an emergency, our primary channel to get information out to the public is the media.”<\/p>\n

NEMA worked closely with the media to ensure they provide verified, credible information to the public, it said.<\/p>\n

Specialist equipment was brought in overnight to remove loose material above the site this morning. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

“We encourage people to be vigilant, use trusted sources for their information, and find out if the source of information is credible before sharing it.<\/p>\n

“We closely monitor what is being circulated during a response but we would encourage New Zealanders to call out suspicious images when they see them, or report them if there is a suitable way to do this.”<\/p>\n

‘Check your sources,’ AI expert says<\/p>\n

Victoria University senior lecturer in AI, Dr Andrew Lensen, believed it was the first time AI images of a disaster in New Zealand had circulated online.<\/p>\n

“But, and I always hate to say this, I’m not surprised,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve seen a lot of AI being used for all sorts of … image and video generation over the past year or so, most notably in things like politics, but I think disasters are unfortunately the sort of the next cab off the ranks.”<\/p>\n

Lensen believed it would only get worse because it was so easy to create fake content.<\/p>\n

“I think there’s also a question there, of course, as to why people do this. I think part of it is they get reactions, they … get clicks, they get engagement.<\/p>\n

“But then there’s also, of course, some other people who have slightly more nefarious reasons as well.”<\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including the timeline for the Mt Maunganui search, and who Donald Trump\u2019s deployed to Minnesota. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

People who know Mount Maunganui or had seen the slip site would easily be able to tell some of the images were not real – but others, for example people who had never visited Aotearoa, may not.<\/p>\n

Lensen said that had the opposite effect, too, with people from overseas seeing real images of the disaster online and believing them to be AI generated.<\/p>\n

“My best advice is that we need to go back to those authoritative sources … what is NEMA reporting? What’s on the council’s Facebook page? What’s on the council’s website? What is Radio New Zealand or other public voices saying about this?” he said.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got to check your sources, you can’t just rely on what someone you don’t know has posted, because it’s very hard to know whether or not it is real content.”<\/p>\n

Netsafe, the online safety agency, had advice about how to spot AI-generated images and video, which includes looking for “strange details”, checking the source, and questioning who made it and why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials are warning people of artificial images circulating online claiming to capture the fallout of last week’s weather,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,1242,111,139,69,1756,145],"class_list":["post-253132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-natural-disasters","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tauranga-bay-of-plenty","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}