{"id":272344,"date":"2026-01-07T14:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/272344\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T14:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:46:08","slug":"how-an-information-vacuum-about-maduros-capture-was-filled-with-deepfakes-and-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/272344\/","title":{"rendered":"How an information vacuum about Maduro’s capture was filled with deepfakes and AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shortly after US President Donald Trump announced a \u201clarge-scale strike\u201d on Venezuela on Saturday, European social media was awash with misleading, AI-generated images of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s capture and videos of Venezuelans celebrating around the world. <\/p>\n

Across TikTok, Instagram and X, AI-generated or altered images, old footage repurposed as new footage and out-of-context videos proliferated. <\/p>\n

Many racked up millions of views across platforms, and were shared by public figures, including Trump himself, X owner Elon Musk, the son of the former Brazilian president, Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro, and the official account of the Portuguese right-wing Chega party in Portugal. <\/p>\n

Some experts suggested this was one of the first incidents<\/a> in which AI images of a major public political figure were created in real time as breaking news unfolded.<\/p>\n

But for others, what was unique about this wave of false information was not its scale, but the fact that so many people \u2014 including public figures \u2014 fell for it. <\/p>\n

Image created by AI artist floods platforms<\/strong><\/p>\n

On 3 January, US special forces captured the former leader of Venezuela and his wife in a lightning operation. Maduro faces federal drug trafficking charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. <\/p>\n

Soon after his capture, multiple images of Maduro appeared across social media channels. Euronews\u2019 fact-checking team, The Cube, found examples of the below image shared in Spanish, Italian, French and Polish. <\/p>\n

One picture of Maduro disembarking an aircraft was shared by the official account<\/a> of Portugal’s far-right Chega party, as well as the party’s founder Andr\u00e9 Ventura and other party members. It was also presented by several online media outlets as a real photo. <\/p>\n

As the image spread rapidly online, fact-checkers noted that <\/a>when the photo was run through Gemini\u2019s SynthID verification tool, it contained digital watermarks indicating that all or part of the image had been generated or edited with Google AI. <\/p>\n

Analysis from Google Gemini found that \u201cmost or all of (the image) was generated or edited with Google AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Detesia, a German startup that specialises in deepfake detection technology, its AI models found \u201csubstantial evidence\u201d that the image was AI-generated. <\/p>\n

Detesia said the original photo sparked several similar ones, with a more modest social media reach, that also contained visible SynthID watermark artifacts. Later versions showed obvious signs of AI-generation, including images of soldiers with three hands and pictures depicting Maduro covered in blood. <\/p>\n

The image, which is very likely AI-generated, garnered millions of views across social media platforms, including one Spanish X post that had 2.6 million views alone. <\/p>\n

According to Tal Hagin, an information warfare analyst and media literacy lecturer, rapid advances in AI technology are making the challenge of identifying deepfakes even more challenging. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are no longer at the stage where it’s six months away, we are already there: unable to identify what’s AI and what’s not.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of Maduro\u2019s capture, individuals had little details and in particular, no images, \u201cwhen you have this vacuum of information, it needs to be filled somehow\u201d, said Hagin. <\/p>\n

\u201cIndividuals started uploading AI-generated images of Maduro in custody of the US Special Forces in order to fill that gap\u201d, he concluded. <\/p>\n

Another image, with more than 4.6 million views, purports to show Maduro sitting in a military cargo plane in white pyjamas. <\/p>\n

Newsguard, a US-based platform that monitors information reliability, reported that the image shows clear signs of AI-generation, including a double row of passenger seat windows. <\/p>\n

It also contradicts evidence: Maduro was transported out of Venezuela by helicopter to a US navy ship \u2014 netiher of which appear to have double-rowed images like in the picture.<\/p>\n

Videos of protesters AI edited or taken out of context<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shortly after false images of Maduro\u2019s arrest circulated, social media platforms were flooded with footage of protesters celebrating his capture. <\/p>\n

Some of these, including one shared by Musk<\/a> of Venezuelans crying of joy at amassed more than 5.6 million views. Signs of AI generation include unnatural human movements, skin tones and abnormal licence plates on car. <\/p>\n

Dispatches from Venezuela indicate the public mood is complex, with a category of the population expressing joy and hope at Maduro\u2019s capture, as well as fear and uncertainty of what a transition of power may look like. Others have condemned the US’ intervention in their country. <\/p>\n

Multiple videos have appeared with misleading captions on protest videos. One video shared on X which amassed more than 1 million views was shared on 4 January with the caption \u201cthis is Caracas today. Huge crowds in support of Maduro.\u201d<\/p>\n

In reality, this video is from a march which Maduro and his youth supporters took part in at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas in November 2025. <\/p>\n

Another video widely shared on French- language X shows a man on a balcony holding a phone up to a crowd of people with the caption, \u201cI’ve rarely seen a people as happy as the Venezuelans to finally be rid of Maduro thanks to American intervention.\u201d Fireworks can be seen in the background. <\/p>\n

Hagin says there are several indicators that cast doubt on the video\u2019s authenticity, including that the fireworks appear to be coming from within the crowd and are not producing an appropriate level of smoke. The image displayed on phone also does not match the crowd below. <\/p>\n

The danger of this volume of AI-generated footage, according to Hagin, is that it creates a false sense of a track record in people\u2019s minds, \u201cif I\u2019ve seen five different examples of Maduro in custody in different outfits \u2014 it must all be fake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are videos that are 100% real, with absolutely no reason to doubt them, and people still say they\u2019re AI because they don\u2019t want them to be true,\u201d Hagin said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes time to verify information, ensure that you\u2019re correct in what you\u2019re saying, and while you\u2019re fiddling around trying to verify this video, people are churning out more and more misinformation onto a platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

False claims spread about US striking Chavez\u2019s residence<\/p>\n

In addition to misleading visuals, false claims that US forces struck former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez\u2019s mausoleum have proliferated online in multiple languages \u2014 and were even shared by Colombian President Gustavo Petro. <\/p>\n

One purports to show the mausoleum bombed by the US military during its capture operation. <\/p>\n

However, as noted by Hagin, the photo on the right is an AI-manipulated image based on a real photo of the mausoleum from 2013, with the destruction artificially added. <\/p>\n

The Hugo Chavez Foundation itself posted a video on Instagram on Monday showing the building intact with a video of a phone showing the date as Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shortly after US President Donald Trump announced a \u201clarge-scale strike\u201d on Venezuela on Saturday, European social media was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,356,18,19,17,42875,31162,82,138552,4450],"class_list":{"0":"post-272344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-nicolas-maduro","16":"tag-protests","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-thecube","19":"tag-venezuela"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115854362970970841","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}