Donald Trump has previously warned that he would be arrested soon. Now, however, fabricated images have been circulating on social media showing scenes of an arrest that has not yet taken place.
The fake images show what looks like New York Police Department officers holding Trump as he resists, and one image even shows Trump running away from the officers. A closer look at the images shows distorted text on the officers’ uniforms, along with distorted faces and hands. One image shows Trump wearing a police belt.
The fake posts include several images created by Eliot Higgins, founder and creative director of the Bellingcat research collective. Higgins shared the images on Twitter, but noted in a thread that they were created using Midjourney, a tool that uses generative AI to create images from a simple text instruction.
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) March 20, 2023
For several of the images, Higgins said he submitted the text instruction “Donald Trump falls over when he is arrested. Fibonacci spiral. News footage” to generate the images.
Some social media users then spread the images on other platforms without explaining that they were fabricated. At the same time the creation of the images receives criticism in social media.
“Why is someone creating such fake images when he might actually be arrested at this point in time? Is this a distraction from the actual danger the ex president is facing?”, a user writes.
