Wrote: Festim Rizanaj
The articles claimed an image showing the body of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, under the rubble after attacks by the United States (US) and Israel.
The publication was made in several Albanian-language media outlets on March 1, on their Facebook pages, but also on other social media pages.
They quoted "some Iranian media." In some cases, at the end of the articles, there was a note that "It is not yet known if the photo is real, but the news is based on foreign media.". However, the headlines have presented it as a fait accompli for the publication of the first photo of Khamenei under the rubble.
The content was published by: “botasot.info","periscope.com","gazetametro.net","indexonline.net","voxnews.al"(Threads), "correspondent.com","oranews.tv","north.info","kosova.info","tattooshop.com","gazeta-shqip.com","infoshqip.com","lapsi.al","ina-online.net","open-tv.mk","leader.mk","noa.al","current.mk","kosovarja-ks.com","albeu.com", Facebook pages "Insider”And“century.info".
What is the truth?
The photo is not real. It is generated with artificial intelligence (AI).
How was the photo found to be AI-generated?
These media outlets have used a photo showing four members of a rescue team standing on top of concrete blocks that had covered Khamenei's alleged body. A body is seen under the rubble, with one hand sticking out, while the face is blurred in the photo.
Hibrid.info used "Google Images" and through it found the photo without blurring the face.
Through platforms for detecting AI-generated content, it has been determined that it is not real.
Initially, "Hivemoderation" gave the result that it is 99.8 percent likely created by AI.
The result shows that the source of the photo is cited as “gemini3”, an artificial intelligence model from “Google”. Through the chatbot “gemini.google.com”, Hibrid.info asked whether the image contains the “SynthID” stamp. “Gemini” confirmed that it is a “Synth ID” stamp, which means that all or a large part of this content was created or modified with Google’s AI tools.
In addition to this information, "Gemini" has cited as suspicious the details of the limbs shown in the photograph, the lighting that does not match the way light falls on objects and the dust in the environment, as well as anomalies in the structures shown.
What is “Synth ID”?
Gemini is an advanced AI assistant and model from Google. It operates under the Google Labs. DeepMind". In the model space at "Google DeepMind" it is explained how these platforms use a "stamp" that is not visible to the eye, but is deliberately placed on the content, so that different software can explain whether the content was generated by Google's AI platforms or not. This technology is called "SynthID".
"SynthID places digital stamps directly on AI-generated images, audio, text or video. These 'stamps' are embedded in all Google AI-generated products and are invisible to humans – but can be detected by SynthID technology," Google's description of how the technology works says.
The content has also been addressed by other international fact-checkers (see here and here).
For more, Hibrid.info has searched on "Google" for international news that may show "the first photo of Ali Khamenei after his death", but the search did not lead to credible sources.
What happened in Iran?
Israel and the US carried out airstrikes on Iran on Saturday. They also hit the compound of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Later, Israel and the US claimed he was dead. Iran initially denied the claims, but on Sunday, March 1, it confirmed the death of the supreme leader and declared 40 days of mourning (see here).
Analyze:
The claim of a photograph showing the body of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, under the rubble after attacks by the US and Iran is false.
The image was generated with artificial intelligence, which is confirmed by detection tools such as "Hivemoderation" and by Google's "SynthID" seal.
Also, there are no credible sources that confirm the authenticity of the photo.
Therefore, based on the working methodology, hibrid.info assesses the content as "Fraud" and "Unverified Content".
rationale:
The “Deception” rating is given to informational content that is manipulated in terms of visual (deepfake, cheapfake), audio, or textual content to deceive the audience. This form of deception is usually used to produce false and manipulated content.
The "Unverified" rating is given to those informative contents that do not provide sufficient information to confirm the claims made in the report, and which could not be verified due to certain circumstances (speed, lack of sources) during the publication of the content.