- There is no evidence on the Internet to corroborate the veracity of the viral photograph on social media. In addition, it was proven through content analysis tools that the image was created with artificial intelligence.
By Cotejo.info
Among Venezuelan Facebook users, a publication is circulating who shares a photograph showing Will Smith, an American actor and rapper, posing with the Venezuelan flag.
Additionally, it is accompanied by the following copy:“What a nice gesture from the prince of rap Will Smith”.
The post has received around 220,000 interactions, plus 4,000 comments – in which there are expressions of recognition and gratitude – and 15,000 shares.
Legend: Will Smith is an American actor and rapper known for classic series such as “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and the film “The Pursuit of Happiness.””
However, it is false that Will Smith has been photographed with the Venezuelan flag as a gesture of solidarity in the face of the recent events that the country has experienced, as suggested by the post analyzed. There is no such post on the actor’s social media, and image analysis tools indicate that it is a fabrication produced by artificial intelligence (AI).
This disinformation content is shared and goes viral in the context of the Venezuelan post-electoral crisis in which different governments of the world They have taken positions, among them, rejecting the result offered by the CNE that declares Nicolás Maduro the winner in the presidential election, without the publication of disaggregated results.
No trace on the internet
As part of the verification process, the Cotejo.info team performed a reverse search of Smith’s photo with the Venezuelan flag on the search engines available in the InVid tool extension –Google Lens, TinEye, Yandex, Bing, Google Fact Check y DBKF– y This photograph did not appear in any of them as a result of a publication by the artist or entertainment media.
Therefore, it was decided to review the artist’s social networks. Will Smith is quite active on TikTok and Instagrambut doing a review of its content In the last 3 months there has not been a photograph of him with the Venezuelan flag nor any publication referring to the country.
In addition, in the photograph analyzed in this text you can see a watermark that says “Alex Lyrics”, therefore, the tool was used Google Lens to search only that portion of the image and detect the watermark, in this way it was found social networks dedicated to the publication of memes and satirical content in Venezuela.
Created with AI
In the absence of results in the search engines used, the Cotejo.info team turned to free tools for analysis and detection of content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the image.
In the review process the tools “Hive Moderation” y “Sightengine”, in both cases the analysis showed a 99% probability of having been a deepfake or an image created with some AI. These tools offer details about their analysis and, in the case of Sightengine, it offers which specific tool was used to create the image, in this case indicating 89% of it was made with “Midjourney”.
Legend: These tools establish an approximation according to their free analysis, so it is advisable to use more than one and apply other verification strategies to complement them.
Conclusion
For all the above, it is false that Will Smith posed in a photograph with the Venezuelan flag as a gesture of solidarity with the country. The viral graphic on Facebook does not appear on any of the actor’s social media profiles, nor in any media outlets.
In addition, the Cotejo.info team confirmed through content analysis tools that the photo was created using artificial intelligence.
This journalistic text from Cotejo.info is part of Facebook’s Third Party Fact-Checker Initiative in Venezuela. This independent verification program has been running since 2016 and currently works with more than 80 journalistic partners in different parts of the world.
