fake images of the demonstration created by AI

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On the roads and roundabouts, they are mobilizing against the total slaughter of their herds. Field actions and, at the same time, false messages on social networks. Like a farmer who seems at the end of his tether, a viral video seen hundreds of times. His rants are fake, generated by artificial intelligence.

And for a week, they have been multiplying. The clip with law enforcement officers reportedly removing their helmets as a sign of support. Or even a video which claims that the firefighters joined the movement. However, the original video, filmed in Bergerac (Dordogne) a few days earlier, shows that it is not about protests, but about the firefighters moving to a new station.

So where do these videos come from? By whom are they produced and relayed? Experts analyzed nearly half a million tweets on X which exceed 4 billion views. For them, the conclusions are clear. “If an average person wanted to find out about X about this crisis, they would practically only observe content coming from far-right or conspiracy spheres.“, estimates Clément Hammel-Cazenave, the general director of Agoratlas.

On the ground, what do the mobilized farmers think? On a dam near Bordeaux (Gironde), they oscillate between anger and spite. “That’s not the fight. Afterwards, it’s the risk, a test of one’s life. Behind me, it’s real, it’s real“, indicates Vincent Collineau, the co-president of the Rural Coordination of Gironde. Sunday December 21 in the evening, far from social networks, they promise to continue their fight.

Agoralas
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