“Heartbroken Melania Trump overcome with emotions,” the caption on a March 9 Facebook post said, adding a broken-heart emoji. “With heavy hearts, we announce the passing. Check the first comment.”
Another Facebook post by a different user shared the same photo and language. Each post linked to similarly worded articles on different websites about the death of the first lady’s mother, Amalija Knavs.
These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)
The posts leave fairly obvious clues that something is amiss.
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(Screenshot from Facebook)
Trump has only five fingers on each hand, a fact that’s well-documented in news photos of the first lady. But the Facebook images show her covering her mouth with her left hand, which has seven fingers. Experts say extra digits or other irregularities are a telltale sign of artificially generated images.
Speaking of which, the second clue is that both images contain a visible credit line that says “stablediffusionweb.com.”
Tech-savvy social media users familiar with artificial intelligence will recognize that website name. It’s a free online text-to-image generator. Its website says it’s capable of generating “photo-realistic images” that empowers people “to create stunning art within seconds.”
The third clue is that although Trump’s mother died, the first lady announced her death Jan. 9, 2024, more than a year ago, not this week, as the posts allege. News coverage of the funeral shows Trump calmly delivering a eulogy for her mother in Palm Beach, Florida.
We rate the claim that an image shows the first lady weeping and announcing the passing of her mother Pants on Fire!
