{"id":191890,"date":"2026-02-24T20:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/191890\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:48:07","slug":"viral-post-said-a-dog-faced-euthanasia-at-a-california-shelter-it-was-an-ai-hoax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/191890\/","title":{"rendered":"Viral post said a dog faced euthanasia at a California shelter. It was an AI hoax"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The image of a fluffy white dog cowering in a corner tugged on heartstrings across the globe.<\/p>\n

Calls and messages from people who saw the viral Facebook post <\/a>\u2014 which warned that this could be Lumi\u2019s \u201cfinal night\u201d \u2014 inundated the San Jos\u00e9 Animal Care and Services shelter. <\/p>\n

But almost none of it was real. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Facebook group \u2018Saving Shelter Dogs from Euthanasia\u2019 recently shared a false, AI-generated post claiming that our shelter dog named Lumi was at risk of euthanasia,\u201d the city of San Jos\u00e9 Animal Care and Services said in its own social media post<\/a>. \u201cThis is completely false. Lumi was not at risk of being euthanized, has already been adopted and is in a permanent home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shelter officials confirmed that they previously did have a dog named Lumi and the post included its correct ID number, but nothing else was accurate. <\/p>\n

The city called the post \u201cmisinformation\u201d and said the Facebook page has previously shared false information about its shelter animals. It said the whole page \u201cappears to be AI-generated.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we appreciate the community\u2019s concern, misinformation creates unnecessary alarm and takes staff time away from caring for animals currently in our shelter,\u201d the city wrote in its statement. <\/p>\n

Questions sent to the \u201cSaving Shelter Dogs from Euthanasia\u201d Facebook page were not immediately answered. It wasn\u2019t clear who is behind the page, or why they were using artificial intelligence while purporting to spotlight real animals in need.<\/p>\n

An employee at another California shelter confirmed that the Facebook page had also shared false information about their animals, and explained that they are only euthanized in the most rare cases. The employee spoke on the condition on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The image of a fluffy white dog cowering in a corner tugged on heartstrings across the globe. Calls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1592,7,9,8,89971,1409,2899,828,17574,89970,89969,8357,5767,65,89972,89973,89974,26778],"class_list":{"0":"post-191890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-animal","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-california-shelter","13":"tag-city","14":"tag-dog","15":"tag-employee","16":"tag-euthanasia","17":"tag-facebook-page","18":"tag-lumi","19":"tag-misinformation","20":"tag-post","21":"tag-risk","22":"tag-san-jose-animal-care","23":"tag-saving-shelter-dogs","24":"tag-services-shelter","25":"tag-viral-post"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}