An image purporting to show Jeffrey Epstein on an island with four boys is being cited by some online as new bombshell evidence against the deceased sex offender. But the viral image, as with many featuring high-profile figures in recent weeks, was generated with artificial intelligence (AI).
The image began gaining traction on Twitter earlier this month and has steadily reached more and more people ever since. As of April 24, over 937,000 Twitter users have viewed the image in a tweet from the far-right user AwakenedOutlaw.
“If Only You Knew How Bad Things Really Are,” a caption across the image says.
The tweet was quickly spread by others who seemingly never questioned the origin of the image.
“The look on the face of those children says it all,” one user responded. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Others invoked adrenochrome, a substance conspiracy theorists believe is consumed by pedophiles from the adrenal glands of frightened children.
“The one on the right looks like his son,” another tweeted. “Would he kill his own son for Adrenochrome? Probably.”
One user even suggested that the image could bring the public to overthrow the entire federal government.
“This information will wave [sic] the people no choice but to overthrow the government,” the user said. “This is why they hide it. Apocalyptic…”
But the image, as noted by Lead Stories, originally appeared in a post on Instagram. Not only that, but the user who created it, named aiartistking, included several hashtags referencing the AI image-generating software Midjourney.
The image on Instagram is also a much higher quality, suggesting that the user who added the caption and shared the image on Twitter may have lowered the quality on purpose in order to make it appear more convincing.
In response to one user who asked if the scenery in the background was real, aiartistking also openly admitted to creating the image with AI.
“the whole thing is generated,” the user wrote. “Nothing in this picture is real. Its created with midjourney.”
It turns out, however, that the Twitter user AwakenedOutlaw was aware of the image’s origins when it was shared. After one user pointed out that the image wasn’t real, AwakenedOutlaw argued that he was justified in passing off a fake image as real.
“Considering the larger goal here, and that we’re in a 5th Gen digital war, it doesn’t matter if it is,” he replied.
A small number of users did push back, stating that purposely spreading a fake image only served to aid Epstein instead.
“Epstein was an absolute monster. But I want people to notice how easy it is to deceive most people. Most in the comments do not even realize this is an AI generated photo. The point is, it is very easy to deceive most people.”
While the photo of Epstein remained largely contained among far-right circles, others have reached a wide audience. A fake image of the pope in a puffer jacket recently went viral across the globe in what could be the most convincing case of AI-generated content to date.
