Six images are being shared on social media platforms that show American financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former United States President Donald Trump posing for pictures.
These photographs are going viral against the backdrop of new documents linked to Epstein being released in a court in the US.
(Swipe right to view all images.)
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: X (formerly Twitter) /Screenshot)
Are these pictures real?: All the six images in question have been generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.
We passed all the images through detection tools and found that the images were AI-generated.
Some of them also had common discrepancies as seen in AI images.
These images were first shared on social media platforms in 2023 and we did not find any credible news reports that carried the viral images.
Trump's pictures with Epstein: It should be noted that several real images of Trump with Epstein are available online. This report looks at the set of images which have been generated using AI and are being shared as real.
IMAGE 1
The image showing Trump sitting next to Epstein in an airplane had some noticeable errors.
The errors: If you look closely at Epstein's face, even though the wrinkles are visible it appears to be smoothened out.
The texture of the entire image is smooth, which is generally an indicator of an image being AI-generated.
Using AI-detection tools: Team WebQoof took the help of two AI image detection tools namely - Hive Moderation and Is It AI? to verify if the images were generated using AI.
On passing the first image through these tools, all of them indicated that the image has been generated using AI.
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The tool showed 99.9 percent chance of the image being AI-generated.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
IMAGE 2
The second image, showing Epstein posing with a glass as Trump can be seen looking at the camera, also had a few discrepancies.
The errors: A closer look at Trump's hands would easily help in spotting an extra finger, which makes his hand appear garbled. Next, the stem of the glass which Epstein is holding appears to be bent and abnormally shaped.
Using AI-detection tools: On passing the images through the two tools, we found that both of them indicated that the image is likely AI-generated.
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The tool showed that the image has likely been generated by AI.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
IMAGE 3
We found a full-size version of the third image on X, which depicted Trump sitting next to Epstein who appears to be naked.
The errors: In the full version of the image, one of Trump's legs seems to be missing. It shows the other oddities in the image as well, like the absence of Epstein's legs, blurred faces in the background, and a misshapen finger of the girl sitting next to Epstein.
Using AI-detection tools: To make it clearer, we passed both the images through the detection tools which too indicated that the image is AI-generated.
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The tool said that the image is likely AI-generated.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
IMAGE 4
Team WebQoof analysed the fourth image, which showed Trump and Epstein sitting next to each other on a sofa, and found some noticeable oddities.
The errors: A closer look at Trump's hand will show that he has a finger in place of a thumb.
The other discrepancies include multiple hands on Epstein's shoulders, the absence of Epstein's legs, an elongated arm of the woman, and the blurred face of a man standing in the background.
Using AI-detection tools: On passing the images through the two said tools, we found a contrasting result. While Hive Moderation said that it is not likely generated by AI, the second tool mentioned that the image is "highly likely" to be AI-generated.
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Hive Moderation gave a result which said that the image might not be AI-generated.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
IMAGES 5 & 6
Both these images show Trump posing with young girls in an airplane. It should be noted that different versions of the same images exist online, where filters and effects have been added.
Since there were no noticeable errors, we passed both images through the detection tools.
The tricky part in fifth image: Team WebQoof checked the image seen in the fifth claim on detection tools and found that the results were contrasting.
This time Hive Moderation said that the image is AI-generated, while Is It AI? indicated that the image might be human-generated.
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The tool said that the image was AI-generated.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
However, both tools said that the image is AI-generated when we passed another version of image that had a toned down filter attached to it.
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The image was likely to be AI-generated.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
The sixth image is, too, AI-generated: According to Hive Moderation and Is It AI?, the image was likely to be AI-generated. While the first tool gave a probability of 83.1 percent, the second one showed 82.5 percent probability.
(Swipe right to view all results.)
The tool said that the image was likely generated using AI.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
The mess that AI-generated images are: With the growing technology, it has become extremely difficult to differentiate AI and human-generated images. To tackle this issue, Team WebQoof had published a guide to help people escape the trap of artificial images. You can read the story here.
Conclusion: While there are several images of Trump and Epstein posing together, these viral images are not real and are AI-generated.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9540511818 , or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)
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