{"id":386008,"date":"2026-01-23T12:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T12:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/386008\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T12:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T12:02:08","slug":"bbc-verify-live-white-house-defends-ai-manipulated-image-showing-arrested-woman-crying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/386008\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Verify Live: White House defends AI-manipulated image showing arrested woman crying"},"content":{"rendered":"

White House shares AI-manipulated image of alleged anti-ICE protesterpublished at 10:29 GMT<\/p>\n

10:29 GMT<\/p>\n

\"\"Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist<\/p>\n

An image of a woman arrested by US authorities and shared by the White House, external<\/a> has been edited using artificial intelligence, experts have told BBC Verify.<\/p>\n

The AI-manipulated image was shared about 30 minutes after the original was posted by US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

In the original picture posted by Noem the woman appears to be expressionless but in the later, AI-manipulated image, she is shown to be crying. The White House\u2019s post on X has now gathered almost five million views. <\/p>\n

Hany Farid, a computer science professor at the University of California and founder of GetReal Security, told BBC Verify it was \u201cnot the first time the White House has shared AI-manipulated or AI-generated content\u201d.<\/p>\n

The woman in the picture, Nekima Levy Armstrong, was arrested for allegedly organising a demonstration that disrupted a church service in Minnesota last Sunday, external<\/a> where a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is a pastor.<\/p>\n

When we asked the White House to comment on the image they directed us to an X post by deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr. <\/p>\n

\u201cEnforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue. Thank you for your attention to this matter,\u201d Dorr wrote, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Farid said the White House\u2019s use of AI-generated content is \u201ctroubling on several levels\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cNot only are they sharing deceptive content, they are making it increasingly more difficult for the public to trust anything they share with us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"White House shares AI-manipulated image of alleged anti-ICE protesterpublished at 10:29 GMT 10:29 GMT Thomas CopelandBBC Verify Live…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-386008","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-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386008","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=386008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}