{"id":190637,"date":"2025-10-10T14:31:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/190637\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T14:31:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:31:09","slug":"bbc-verify-live-how-ai-helped-spread-misinformation-over-australian-boys-disappearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/190637\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Verify Live: How AI helped spread misinformation over Australian boy&#8217;s disappearance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How AI-generated images fuelled misinformation around Australian missing child casepublished at 11:24 BST<\/p>\n<p>11:24 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/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>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"An image annotated by BBC Verify of an AI-generated picture being circulated about the case\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/5cdc89e8-b471-4f05-af3f-8ada49340b70.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"800\" height=\"441\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Police in South Australia have scaled back a search for a four-year-old boy named Gus Lamont who disappeared on Saturday 27 September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite extensive reporting of the case by Australian media, AI-generated misinformation has been spreading on social media this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">One AI-generated image circulated online that appeared to show a man carrying \u201cGus\u201d into a car. It was labelled: \u201cIs this a kidnapping case?\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">BBC Verify has confirmed this image is not real and South Australia Police has told local media it was urging people to check trusted sources for accurate information.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">\u201cPolice urge caution when using artificial intelligence in internet searches and recommend cross-referencing the information with trusted sources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The search has now shifted to a \u201crecovery operation\u201d, police say, adding there was \u201clittle hope for us to find Gus alive\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">How do we know it\u2019s AI-generated?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A Facebook account called \u201cCelebrity Today\u201d shared this picture to its 815,000 followers and has had around 5,000 reactions and more than 2,500 shares.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">I sent a selection of images from the account to Michael Wooldridge, professor of artificial intelligence at Oxford University, who pointed to the unnatural hands and limbs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In the fake image of the boy a the top of this post the man\u2019s forefinger is elongated and in an AI-generated picture of a woman holding a real picture of Gus &#8211; see below &#8211; she only has three fingers on her left hand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">We also found that many of the posts shared by Celebrity Today mix real photos with AI-generated images.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">We\u2019ll share more information soon about what we\u2019ve found about the Facebook accounts and the fake news site behind this AI misinformation.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Two images, left and top-right, were shared by the account that we know are AI-generated. The bottom-right image is real but was also posted by the Facebook account\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3b7707d7-f887-40b0-9de7-7ee8d7fff9fc.png.webp.webp\"  width=\"1280\" height=\"1346\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How AI-generated images fuelled misinformation around Australian missing child casepublished at 11:24 BST 11:24 BST Thomas CopelandBBC Verify&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-190637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}