The truth behind Trump and his smiling black supporters – they’re fake
Raoul Simons
Mon, March 4, 2024 at 8:42 AM EST·2 min read
1.1k
This deepfake, created by a team at a conservative radio show in Florida, shows Mr Trump smiling with his arms around a group of black women
Donald Trump supporters are targeting black voters with disinformation, including AI-generated fake images of the former president, campaigners have warned.
Cliff Albright, the co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a group that encourages black people to vote, fears so-called “deepfake” images are being deployed to influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
His warning follows a BBC Panorama investigation that discovered dozens of deepfakes portraying black people as supporting the former president.
Mr Albright said the fake images were consistent with a “very strategic narrative” designed to convince black voters to back Mr Trump in November’s election.
The BBC investigation claimed that fake images of black Trump supporters, generated by artificial intelligence (AI), are “one of the emerging disinformation trends” ahead of November’s election.
But Panorama found no evidence directly linking the deepfakes it uncovered to Mr Trump’s campaign.
Another deepfake shows Mr Trump posing with a group of young black men on a door step
One deepfake, created by Mark Kaye and his team at a conservative radio show in Florida, shows Mr Trump smiling with his arms around a group of black women at a party.
It was shared on Facebook, where Mr Kaye has more than one million followers and, from the comments posted below, it was apparent that some users believed the AI-generated image was real.
“I’m not a photojournalist,” Mr Kaye told the BBC. “I’m not out there taking pictures of what’s really happening. I’m a storyteller.”
He had posted an article about black voters supporting Mr Trump and illustrated it with the AI image.
“I’m not claiming it is accurate,” added Mr Kaye. “I’m not saying, ‘Hey, look, Donald Trump was at this party with all of these African American voters. Look how much they love him!’
“If anybody’s voting one way or another because of one photo they see on a Facebook page, that’s a problem with that person, not with the post itself.”
Another deepfake seen by the BBC shows Mr Trump posing with a group of young black men on a doorstep
The BBC claimed the person behind the account, called Shaggy, is a committed Trump supporter living in Michigan.
His post has had over 1.3 million views, according to X (formerly Twitter). Some users called it out as a fake but others seemed to believe the image was real.
Mr Trump’s campaign is hoping to increase support from black voters, who were important to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.
A recent New York Times and Sienna College poll found that in six key swing states 71 per cent of black voters would back Mr Biden in 2024, lower than the 92 per cent nationally that helped him four years ago.
It's so bad they have to create fake Black support for this stinkin fascist.
