Highly realistic AI-generated images depicting an explosion near the Pentagon that went viral on Twitter caused the stock market to dip briefly earlier today.
Tweets with images supposedly depicting an explosion near the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia, were amplified by many verified Twitter accounts, including a Russian state media one with millions of followers and a verified account impersonating the Bloomberg news agency.
Even though the viral pictures seemed real at first glance, it’s filled with hints that they were generated using artificial intelligence, proving that the entire thing is a hoax.
While Twitter has now suspended the fake Bloomberg account, this highlights the dangers behind its pay-to-be-verified system, allowing any account to be verified by paying for a blue check which, for many, implies it can be trusted.
The Arlington Fire and EMS Department also confirmed that the image is fake in a tweet retweeted by the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (which no longer has a blue check even though it’s a Defense Agency in the U.S. Department of Defense).
“There is NO explosion or incident taking place at or near the Pentagon reservation, and there is no immediate danger or hazards to the public,” Arlington Fire & EMS said.
A DOD spokesperson also tagged the AI-generated image as “misinformation” in a statement made to Forbes.
The Twitter account that shared the initial image removed the tweet hours after the picture was tagged as a fake across the platform by U.S. government agencies and OSINT experts.
This follows a similar incident in November after Twitter Blue added the ability to pay for a blue check when a verified account impersonating the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical giant tweeted that insulin “is free now.
Even though Twitter took down the account, the tweet went viral, amassing thousands of retweets and crashing Eli Lilly’s shares by roughly $22 billion within 24 hours.
Twitter paused Twitter Blue paid verification in response to the incident and many other similar pranks and hoaxes, as a Twitter sales employee told NBC at the time.
The Twitter Blue premium subscription service has been available globally since March 23, 2023, and it allows anyone to verify their account by paying $8/month to get a blue check and some extra features, including fewer ads, prioritized ranking in conversations and search, and access to tweet editing.
