Supporters of Donald Trump have been deepfaking images of the former president with black voters.
According to a recent BBC Panorama story, in an effort to increase the number of African Americans who cast ballots in the US presidential election of 2024, dozens of artificial intelligence (AI) images have been created to depict black individuals endorsing Mr. Trump.
Although at least one well-known Trump supporter, radio presenter Mark Kaye of Florida, has acknowledged producing the phony photographs, there is no proof that Mr. Trump’s campaign is directly connected to these images.
“I’m not a photojournalist.” He declared to the BBC,
“I’m not capturing images of actual events with my camera.” I tell stories.
One of the images, created by Mr Kaye and distributed on the conservative radio show, shows Mr Trump with his arms around a group of black women and smiling.
The picture was shared on Facebook, where Mr Kaye has over a million followers.
The image, at a glance, looks real but ultimately has the typical hallmarks of AI-generated pictures, such as shiny skin and some models missing fingers
However, some users appeared to believe the AI image was real, the BBC reports.
But Mr Kaye says he’s being transparent.
‘I’m not claiming it is accurate. I’m not saying, ‘Hey, look, Donald Trump was at this party with all of these African American voters. Look how much they love him!” said Mr Kaye.
‘If anybody’s voting one way or another because of one photo they see on a Facebook page, that’s a problem with that person, not with the post itself.’
Another deep fake image shows a picture of Mr Trump posing with black voters on a front porch which originally came from a satirical account but later was reposted with a caption that Mr Trump stopped his motorcade to pose with the men.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see this photograph? pic.twitter.com/TAK9EMyd6X
— Trump History (@Trump_History45) October 20, 2023
The BBC reports the person who created the image was known as Shaggy from Michigan who blocked the reporter when asked about the images.
His post has around 1.3 million views on X, where some users called out he fake images. However, some also believed the image was real.
Chris Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a group which encourages black people to vote, told the BBC the fake images were a ‘strategic narrative’ to show Mr Trump is popular in the black community.
‘There have been documented attempts to target disinformation to black communities again, especially younger black voters,’ he said.
The images come as the US 2024 elections inch closer, where Mr Trump has thrown his hat in the ring to become President again as leader of the Republican party.
