From New York Times
‘They Couldn’t Break Me’: A Protester, the White House and a Doctored Photo
By Erica L. Green
The White House posted a manipulated photo of her arrest to its official social media account, depicting Ms. Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and activist, as hysterical — tears streaming down her face, her hair disheveled, appearing to cry out in despair. “ARRESTED” was emblazoned across the photo, along with a misleading description of Ms. Levy Armstrong as a “far-left agitator” who was “orchestrating church riots in Minnesota...”
Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who researches digital forensics, deepfake imagery and misinformation, said that the White House response was a troubling escalation in its use of artificial intelligence.
“I think reasonable people can say that this one was really different, because the photo was real, and it was A.I.-modified to change her facial expression, and it was not labeled such, and it wasn’t at all obvious from the context that it was a meme, as the White House wanted to say,” he said...
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley.
