The TikTok account named "bejevete" published a video yesterday (February 24) claiming that Princess Diana is alive and that she is now living on a secret island.
In this video, this account has also added an image of Princess Diana, who is seen in old age, through which it claims that she is alive.
But, after research conducted through the automated online fact-checking program "InVID", hibrid.info has confirmed that this image is an artistic work by Turkish artist Alper Yesiltas, who clarified on his official Instagram page that the photo of Princess Diana was created using artificial intelligence.
This artist has captioned this work "As if nothing happened", which in Albanian translates to "As if nothing had happened".
Link to the video material published on TikTok by the "bejevete" account:
In addition to TikTok, the video material has also been distributed on YouTube by the "Bejevet" channel, which has managed to accumulate over 8 thousand views. (see here)
Hibrid.info has found the personal account of Turkish artist Alper Yesiltas on social media Instagram, and one of his works is the portrait of Princess Diana, which he posted on September 17, 2022. (see here)
During the research, hibrid.info found that the aforementioned artist, in addition to the portrait of Princess Diana, has also created other portraits of figures from the art world who are no longer alive, and through artificial intelligence he has created them of how some of the famous people would look if they were still alive. (see here)
Analyze:
The "bejevete" page on TikTok has published a video claiming that Princess Diana is alive.
This account also makes this claim through a photograph of Diana, in which she is seen in old age.
But after research conducted by hibrid.info, it has been confirmed that that image was taken by a Turkish artist, who, through artificial intelligence, created this photograph with the caption "As if nothing had happened," implying what she might look like if she were still alive.
After verifying the facts, hibrid.info evaluates this claim as a "Conspiracy Theory".
Reasoning:
"Conspiracy theories" are media reports that disseminate a false or unverifiable description of a phenomenon, event, or person, presenting it as part of or the result of a secret plan ("conspiracy"). A characteristic of these reports is that they present a series of claims, presented as facts, between which cause-effect relationships are established, without providing any credible evidence.