WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Images on social media show scenes of riots in France.
OUR VERDICT
False. They are AI-generated images.
AAP FACTCHECK - An image claiming to show an older couple in their underwear after being stripped and robbed by French rioters is an AI-generated fake.
The image contains a digital watermark known as SynthID that confirms it was made with artificial intelligence (AI).
An Israeli account posted the fabricated image to X on October 17 and it was flagged as AI content, according to a France 24 investigation into its origins.
The account user has confirmed to the BBC that the image was AI generated.
The now-deleted X post described the image as showing "a Parisian elderly couple left in their underwear" near the city's presidential palace.
Other social media users then reshared the image on social media without identifying it as AI-generated.
Among those who took the image to be real was an Australian man who shared it on Facebook and Instagram as part of a longer video about the French riots.
In the video, he described the incident depicted as humiliating for the elderly French couple and Western civilisation. (timestamp 56 seconds)
OpenAI's image verification tool confirms it was created using OpenAI software. Likewise, Google's AI image detector also shows it was made with OpenAI tools.
There are also visual clues the image is fabricated. The heads of two people in the background in the top left appear to merge into one another, while another appears to have no legs.
The elderly woman's left hand also appears distorted. And while two figures are shown on the left of the image addressing the couple, only one pair of legs is shown.
France 24 also reports that the street bollard in the image's foreground doesn't match the style typically seen in Paris.
France 24 said reports that an elderly couple was attacked in Paris during the riots had not been verified and the Paris prosecutor's office said there had been no reports to that effect to date.
The image has also been debunked by other fact-checking organisations, including Lead Stories.
The Australian man's video also includes an image purportedly showing an aerial view of Paris burning after the riots, with the Eiffel Tower surrounded by spot fires and smoke plumes (timestamp 1:12).
The man claims the image was taken from a cockpit and says it "looks like the apocalypse".
However, the image also contains a SynthID watermark indicating it is AI-generated.
It includes notable distortions and errors, and when the details are enlarged, they're revealed as a nonsensical jumble of indistinct textures and shapes, rather than buildings and roads.
Several features of the city are also missing, such as the Champ de Mars, the large park that extends in front of the Eiffel Tower and is illuminated at night.
Paris' large illuminated avenues, that can clearly be seen in genuine images of the city, are also missing.
The Eiffel Tower also borders the River Seine, which is absent from the aerial image.
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