Media Outlets Tricked by AI-Generated Image of Police in Drag Making a Bust

Several media outlets in the United States and the United Kingdom were duped by an AI-generated image of police in Thailand dressed in drag allegedly catching a criminal.

The hoax originated on an official Facebook account for the Tha Luang police station in Thailand, which boasted that officers went undercover as members of a dance troupe in opulent, flashy dresses. Outlets like The Sun, The New York Post, The Telegraph, Mirror, GB News and Express all shared the story as though it were true.

However, it wasn’t. The police station later updated its Facebook post to reveal that the image was made using AI-generated software. However, although police did not dress in drag to make the bust, the arrest was real. They shared the original image that includes the same men in plain clothes and the suspect, with his face blurred. The AI-generated image also included a female dancer, who was apparently purely generated by AI.

The outlets that reported the story as fact have since updated their stories, acknowledging that they took the image, posted without a hint of sarcasm, at face value before the station came forward to reveal it was all a hoax.

“I wanted to create a friendlier image of the police – showing a cute and humorous side – so that people would feel more comfortable approaching officers. Sometimes the public feels intimidated by the police,” police sergeant Rachata Mitrsuipong told local media in Thailand, per The New York Post.

In hindsight, the image is clearly fake as the men are doing nothing to cover their faces to look like women in a dance troupe. Still, the media outlets reported on the story before the station’s confession as though it were real.