An image of black smoke billowing next to a bureaucratic-looking building spread across social media Monday morning, with the claim that it showed an explosion near the Pentagon.
The posts sent a brief shiver through the stock market as they were quickly picked up by news outlets outside the U.S., before officials jumped in to clarify that no blast actually took place and the photo was a fake.
Experts say the viral image had telltale signs of an AI-generated forgery, and its popularity underscores the everyday chaos these now increasingly sophisticated and easy-to-access programs can inflict.
Here's a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: An image shows an explosion near the Pentagon.
THE FACTS: Police and fire officials in Arlington, Virginia, say the image is not real and there was no incident at the U.S. Department of Defense headquarters across the Potomac from the nation's capital.
Despite this, the image and claim was spread by outlets including RT, a Russian government-backed media company formerly known as Russia Today. It was also widely shared in investment circles, including an account bearing Twitter's signature blue verification check mark that falsely suggested it was associated with Bloomberg News.
“Reports of an explosion near the Pentagon in Washington DC,” the Russian state news agency wrote in a since-deleted tweet to its more than three million followers.
RT confirmed it took down the tweet and…
