AI-edited photo exaggerates crowd at mourning procession
A photo claiming to show a massive mourning procession led by a leader of the banned Chhatra League has spread on Facebook. A fact-check by Dismislab found that the original video of the procession showed a much smaller gathering. The number of people in the procession was artificially increased by editing the original scene with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
On August 1, a collage of three images was posted from a Facebook profile in a group named Golam Rabbani. The post read, “A huge mourning procession. Let mourning become strength. The massive mourning procession led by Dhaka Metropolitan South Chhatra League leader Sakib Al Hasan Sakib was truly worth seeing.”
The collage includes two views of what appears to be a large procession. In all three images, a structure resembling the Metro Rail infrastructure can be seen alongside the procession. At the time this report was published, the post had received more than 3,000 reactions. In addition to nearly 150 comments, the images had been shared 170 times.
The same images were also used in multiple Facebook posts making the same claim (1, 2).
An examination of the images revealed multiple inconsistencies. The faces of people in the back rows are not clearly visible, and even the faces of those in the front row appear distorted. The scenes suggest that the images depict two different moments, yet in both images the facial expressions, hand positions, and leg positions of everyone in the front row are identical. One person’s hand disappears midway. Except for one poster, the text on all the other posters is neither in Bangla nor in any recognizable language. All of these characteristics indicate that the images were likely generated or edited using AI.
In a more detailed analysis, Dismislab used multiple AI detection tools. Sightengine and “AI or Not” both concluded that there is a 99 percent probability that the circulated image was AI-generated. According to Image Whisperer’s analysis, there is clear evidence of digital manipulation and background alteration in the image of the political gathering. In other words, additional people and other elements were inserted into the original scene to make the procession appear much larger than it actually was.
In the next stage, a relevant video was found through a keyword search. A post published on August 1 stated that a mourning procession had been held in Dhaka under the initiative of Dhaka Metropolitan South Chhatra League. The video was also posted by the banned Bangladesh Awami League and Bangladesh Chhatra League pages. The post by the Awami League, a political party whose activities have been banned, read, “Dhaka Metropolitan South Chhatra League’s mourning procession in memory of the Father of the Nation. August’s mourning will become December’s strength… ‘Bangabandhu’s ideals are the courage behind our struggle, and Bangladesh is our commitment.’”
The same video was also shared by several other pages (1, 2). In all of the videos, the individual standing in front of the banner and the people in the front row match those seen in the circulated images. However, the number of participants in the procession shown in the videos was significantly smaller.
In other words, the scene from this video was edited using AI, and the circulated images exaggerated the size of the procession by showing far more people than were actually present.
