{"id":289992,"date":"2026-07-08T04:47:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/289992\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T04:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:47:15","slug":"image-depicting-myanmar-activists-doing-the-viking-row-in-new-york-is-ai-generated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/289992\/","title":{"rendered":"Image depicting Myanmar activists doing the ‘Viking row’ in New York is AI-generated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football fans doing Norway’s “Viking row” has recently been a common sight in New York’s iconic Times Square, but an image circulating online claiming to depict Burmese demonstrators doing the same as a way of showing support for deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi is fabricated. The image contained visual errors indicative of synthetic content and was lifted from a clip bearing the watermark of an AI tool.<\/p>\n

“In the heart of Times Square, we made our voices louder,” reads part of the Burmese-language\u00a0Facebook post <\/a>published on June 26, 2026.<\/p>\n

The post shares an image showing people in various ethnic Burmese attire sitting on the ground, with their arms outstretched forward, looking poised to row a boat in unison. They can be seen surrounded by billboards resembling those in New York’s Time Square.<\/p>\n

“Sitting in solidarity in Viking Row, demanding Proof of Life for our mother, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, shows the unwavering spirit of the revolutionary people.”<\/p>\n

The “Viking row” is a longstanding Norwegian tradition that became a trend online<\/a> as fans shared videos of themselves performing it in support of their national team at the 2026 World Cup (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"<span>Screenshot<\/p>\n

Screenshot of false Facebook post taken on July 7, 2026, with a red X and AI label added by AFP<\/p>\n

The same claim was shared in multiple Facebook posts<\/a>, days after football fans took to New York’s Times Square<\/a> to support their teams competing in the World Cup (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The claim also came weeks after Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris, organised a skateboarding challenge<\/a> on his mother’s 81st birthday of June 19, 2026, to demand proof<\/a> from the Myanmar government that she is alive (archived here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Myanmar plunged into civil war after the military staged a coup in 2021, ousting the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and ending a decade-long experiment with democracy.<\/p>\n

After five years of military rule, coup leader Min Aung Hlaing this year surrendered his post as armed forces chief to take over as president after tightly restricted elections excluding Suu Kyi’s party.<\/p>\n

In late April he announced Suu Kyi, now 81, would be moved to\u00a0house arrest<\/a> — although analysts dismissed the apparent act of mercy as lip service intended to rebrand his unrelenting rule (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But the circulating image is made with AI.<\/p>\n

A reverse image search<\/a> led to a video<\/a> shared on the verified Facebook account of former Burmese politician Daw Cho Cho<\/a> on June 25 (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

An\u00a0AIReel<\/a> watermark is visible at the top left corner of the footage, indicating it was generated using the AI tool (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Further inspection of the clip identified errors with the Burmese reference to Suu Kyi “Amay Suu”, which means Mother Suu. It was misspelled as “Ama Yay Suu” on the clip, which also contains blurry faces.<\/p>\n

\"<span>Screenshot<\/p>\n

Screenshot of falsely shared clip with visual inconsistencies highlighted and AI-label added by AFP<\/p>\n

An analysis of the video using the AI-detection tool Hive Moderation<\/a> found that it was 90.8% likely be AI-generated.<\/p>\n

\"<span>Screenshot<\/p>\n

Screenshot from Hive Moderation taken on July 2, 2026<\/p>\n

AFP reached out to Cho but no response was immediately forthcoming.<\/p>\n

Proof of life<\/a> campaigns were held in\u00a0London on May 17 <\/a>and Australia on June 4<\/a>, but there were no reports that the activity was organised at Times Square (archived links here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

AFP has previously debunked other misinformation related to\u00a0Myanmar unrest<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football fans doing Norway’s “Viking row” has recently been a common sight in New York’s iconic Times Square,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[110849,62358,110851,61634,110850,9,11,10,2027],"class_list":["post-289992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-aung-san-suu-kyi","tag-facebook-post","tag-football-fans","tag-myanmar","tag-myanmar-government","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-times-square"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}