Trump supporters usung AI to fake photos of him with Black folks

Trump supporters are using AI to create fake pictures of him interacting with Black people, the result of a fundamental discrepancy between polls suggesting that he is popular with Black voters and reality. The phenomenon has gotten to the point where the BBC has written about it at length.

BBC Panorama discovered dozens of deepfakes portraying black people as supporting the former president.

Mr Trump has openly courted black voters, who were key to Joe Biden's election win in 2020.

But there's no evidence directly linking these images to Mr Trump's campaign.

The co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a group which encourages black people to vote, said the manipulated images were pushing a "strategic narrative" designed to show Mr Trump as popular in the black community.

It's grim how this plays into the blind spots of U.S. media, which love to report Trump's racist remarks while avoiding dwelling on a lifetime of racist behavior. The whole cycle of "commissioning polls so we have something to write about" shapes politics. "Black voters like Trump" is an editorial decision: however real it was it'll be a lot realler when we're done working it. And it wouldn't work so well without stuff like this, the wake washing the wind:

We tracked down the person behind the account called Shaggy, who is a committed Trump supporter living in Michigan.

"[My posts] have attracted thousands of wonderful kind-hearted Christian followers," he said in messages sent to the BBC on social media.

When I tried to question him on the AI-generated image he blocked me.