5 ms·

White House defends sharing AI image showing arrested woman crying

133 points by petepete 9mo ago

lwansbrough 9mo ago
[flagged]
fuzzfactor 9mo ago
For everyone involved or resposible about this kind of thing, this sheds no light whatsoever on their position when it comes to deepfakes.
- haritha-j 9mo ago
  It sheds plenty of light. They're pro-deepfakes. The government literally uses deepfakes to make themselves look more 'powerful', if that's the right word.
  - throwawayqqq11 9mo ago
    ... to fabricate emotional messages. They would happily reach for any picture showing something that could resemble a crime and put a crying "3 years old rape victim" next to it. This is what their base is conditioned on. In this case, deepfakes were likely the best option.
- IAmBroom 9mo ago
  That is a completely illogical take: "This tells us nothing about how those who intentionally used deepfakes feel about intentionally using deepfakes".
  - fuzzfactor 9mo ago
    You mean any authorities who might be expected to protect the public against deepfakes might not really be working 100% in favor of the public? Say it isn't so . . .
- insane_dreamer 9mo ago
  it absolutely does. their position is "deepfakes are OK so long as we're the ones doing it"
cdrnsf 9mo ago
It's propaganda, plain and simple. "The government... the American government - they're sneaky, they're very deceitful, they're liars, they're cheats, they're rip-offs. I mean, the American government is one-- is one systematic government that... that nobody can trust. I don't trust them myself"
- amelius 9mo ago
  Yes, spreading FUD, basically.
huhkerrf 9mo ago
This is just so absolutely stupid. This group of people have somehow got it in their heads that their primary job is owning the libs, and not governing. Independent of your views on immigration, or law and order, or anything. Juvenile shit like this does absolutely nothing to advance any policy goals. Even worse, why should you average normie trust any image that comes out from the White House? If there's a serious national security issue, why are we going to trust a group of people who are willing to doctor a photo for such stupid ends?
- watwut 9mo ago
  > This group of people have somehow got it in their heads that their primary job is owning the libs, and not governing. Their voters wanted exactly that tho. Although they did not wanted harm for themselves, conservatives and republicans actively wanted this kind of "owning the libs" and insulting "the libs". This part is literally what the vote was about.
  - luma 9mo ago
    Every Republican you know, including a substantial percentage of the users here, is directly responsible for what we have in front of us today. This is precisely the thing they voted for.
    - palmotea 9mo ago
      [flagged]
      - fzeroracer 9mo ago
        This is nonsense, I'm sorry. Trump literally got elected off of pure partisan vilification, insults and just bullshit in general. The idea that the left need to go high while Trump and the GOP openly courted shit like pizzagate is just nonsense. The fact that the dems are weak assholes unable to make even symbolic measures towards someone that's openly violating the constitution and harassing citizens is symptomatic of the deeper rot of attempting to be a 'big tent' party and having zero actual spine or policy.
haritha-j 9mo ago
The title is a bit misleading, at least, I interpreted it wrong. The white house took a photo of a woman who was arrested, but expressionless, and used AI to make it look like she was crying. Insanely disgusting behaviour.
- jagged-chisel 9mo ago
  I’m genuinely curious about how this title was misleading. I have not heard anything about this issue until this link on HN. I did indeed assume the crying was added by AI at the behest of White House staff. Please don’t misread: I am genuinely curious how I one may have read this another way and how that could have been helped with rewording.
  - Planktonne 9mo ago
    Two things, I think: 1. "Defends" suggests some level of explanation and justification; the White House did not present any here. 2. "AI image showing arrested woman" could mean a fully-generated image of a woman, rather than editing an image of an existing person under law enforcement control to disguise the actual facts. The first one would be bizarre, the second one is much more problematic.
    - Larrikin 9mo ago
      There is no meaningful difference between a 100% percent fabricated image and a some slightly smaller percentage of a digitally manipulated image when presented from the government as fact. There's no need to split hairs.
      - Planktonne 9mo ago
        It's the difference between drawing a cartoon and editing a photograph; the second one is a definite attempt to misrepresent matters of fact, the first could be argued to be illustrative only.
        9mo ago
echelon_musk 9mo ago
The White House said "The memes will continue". Dodging the direct question while at the same time admitting it is a doctored image as it qualifies as a 'meme'. Obviously it masquerades as truth and this is terrifying deception. What should I expect from the same administration that also altered the (tiny fraction of) Epstein files before releasing them.
- fuzzfactor 9mo ago
  The memes will continue until the torture is more widely tolerated.
ck2 9mo ago
It's the non-stop openly lying to judges in court that should be the worldwide newspaper headline That's some post-constitutional anti-democracy bullsh*t right there that should have zero tolerance because that means everything else is likely a lie. It's like a virus since he came down the golden escalator, first every single thing he said was a lie or wild exaggeration, and then he recruited exclusively only people around him to do the same. There's good reason the highest power positions in the government are HIS PERSONAL LAWYERS with legal obligation first to him beyond anything else.
Planktonne 9mo ago
The article title is overly kind; the White House didn't defend the image, they dismissed it as an issue. This reporting presents it as a debate with reasoning on both sides, rather than a brazen act with no defence supplied. It's not good journalism to legitimise a position that didn't even attempt to legitimise itself.
- roxolotl 9mo ago
  This has been the story the whole time. Coupled with the insistence the media is unfair they’ve managed to shift the window of what is acceptable. It’s been remarkably effective and most news sources seemingly have no counter.
  - piltdownman 9mo ago
    It's not even about whats acceptable, it's about what they can frame as a narrative for their supporters in as incendiary a manner as possible. Remember that the FCC investigations into Comcast and NBCUniversal weren't predicated on political bias or uneven reporting, but rather that they '...may be promoting invidious forms of DEI in a manner that does not comply with FCC regulations.” Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, summarises its mechanisms and intent quite succinctly: “This is the path that Viktor Orbán took in Hungary, where you use the power of the state to ensure that the media is compliant, that outlets are either curbed and become much less willing to be critical, or they are sold to owners who will make that happen."
    - roxolotl 9mo ago
      I don’t disagree that’s a lot of it, and with Hungary as my possible second citizenship have been following Orban closely. I do think there’s something different happening here though. The loop is: - Do something wildly unacceptable - Media writes an article declaring the action is indefensible - Those involved complain publicly about the unfair nature of the story; their supporters back them up - Next time to avoid controversy media writes a slightly more fair story It doesn’t even require state power because technically in the US they cannot. There is clearly threat of power kicking journalists out of the pentagon is a clear example. But it’s much more about creating a permission structure through public airing of grievances.
Larrikin 9mo ago
Distract from the pedophile issue with memes while grifting billions from the US. Trump did not have enough pay the money from his rape case. Now a year later through bribes and making Americans poorer with tariffs he personally has earned over a billion dollars. Greenland conquering gave him a couple extra weeks to break the law and only release the 1 percent of photos from the Epstein files that had Clinton in them.
blitzar 9mo ago
Those who can do; those that can't meme and make fake images.
- shrubble 9mo ago
  The cynical part of me thinks it’s because she wasn’t crying in real life.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 9mo ago
    She didn't appear sufficiently "owned" and the police didn't appear sufficiently cruel. Why don't more people feel insulted when lied to?
- UncleMeat 9mo ago
  I believe that it is under discussed just how much AI has become the aesthetic of modern fascism.
- cosmicgadget 9mo ago
  When reality doesn't convey your message, change reality.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
mexicocitinluez 9mo ago
My lord, the absolute irony in a large subset of Americans believing the government was over-reaching only to find themselves supporting the government quite literally re-writing history.
MichaelNolan 9mo ago
Direct link instead of live view - https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ce9yydgmzdvt?post=asset%3Aaec7368e-3986-43fd-a11d-75572a0b7d33#post https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ce9yydgmzdvt?post=asset%3Aaec7...
racktash 9mo ago
We're well past the point where (and it's ever growing) evidence of Trumpism's tyranny and cruelty will sway anyone, I think. As depressing as it is, a large swathe of people just do not and cannot care. I remain shocked that the March CECOT deportations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2025_American_deportations_of_Venezuelans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2025_American_deportatio...) is largely untalked about now. Yes, many months have passed, but the blatant human rights violations involved remain truly shocking to me.
- jwx48 9mo ago
  There was, I believe, a hairdresser rounded up by ICE and sent to CECOT with images/video of his head getting shaved and audio of him crying for his mother. I think about him all the time, and wonder what happened to him because it's so horrific. He doesn't strike me as the kind of person who would survive a situation like that, and yet nothing on his status, or his family, has noticably trickled out as information in the last nine or 10 months. My short little comment here will do nothing to encompass the context of the situation, but to have this humiliating experience documented and highlighted only to have it disappear so quickly and easily it's downright depressing.
  - tim333 9mo ago
    I think it's this guy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/28/cecot-el-salvador-venezuela-immigration https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/28/cecot-el-sal... Released and back with family in Venez.
moribvndvs 9mo ago
> a church service in Minnesota last Sunday, where a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is a pastor. Wait, what?
- rsynnott 9mo ago
  I assume he really mostly likes the cruxifixction bit of the story.
- NoGravitas 9mo ago
  American Christianity is a deeply twisted heresy that worships the Demiurge.
- insane_dreamer 9mo ago
  The KKK was deeply evangelical Christian.
rsynnott 9mo ago
There's something deeply _sick_ about this regime.
- krapp 9mo ago
  This regime is just a symptom, it didn't emerge from a vacuum, rather it's a manifestation of the culture that nourishes it. This sort of vindictive cruelty and mockery is what voters liked most about Trump, they found it refreshing. What's deeply sick is the society that voted this regime into power - twice - and still supports it. And I'm including the "leftists" who decided a second Trump term was preferable to the "status quo" under Kamala Harris, or that it didn't matter because "both parties were the same." There's a special circle of Hell reserved for that lot.
  - insane_dreamer 9mo ago
    Trump 1.0 I dismissed as an aberration, but Trump 2.0 has truly exposed the inhumanity of a significant segment of US society, that was always there beneath the surface since slavery and Jim Crow just waiting for "normalization" that would allow it to re-emerge. I was naive about the progress the US had made over the last century, and it has been a rude awakening. I no longer want to raise my kids here and am actively working towards emigrating.
tavavex 9mo ago
Aaand it's flagged. Can someone explain to me how an article about one of the world's most influential governments posting digitally altered imagery as fact is off-topic in regards to tech and computer science?
- krapp 9mo ago
  "politics." "we only want curious conversation here." "if it would be covered on tv it's probably off topic." You know the drill.

133 points by petepete 9mo ago

[flagged]

For everyone involved or resposible about this kind of thing, this sheds no light whatsoever on their position when it comes to deepfakes.

haritha-j 9mo ago
It sheds plenty of light. They're pro-deepfakes. The government literally uses deepfakes to make themselves look more 'powerful', if that's the right word.
- throwawayqqq11 9mo ago
  ... to fabricate emotional messages. They would happily reach for any picture showing something that could resemble a crime and put a crying "3 years old rape victim" next to it. This is what their base is conditioned on. In this case, deepfakes were likely the best option.
IAmBroom 9mo ago
That is a completely illogical take: "This tells us nothing about how those who intentionally used deepfakes feel about intentionally using deepfakes".
- fuzzfactor 9mo ago
  You mean any authorities who might be expected to protect the public against deepfakes might not really be working 100% in favor of the public? Say it isn't so . . .
insane_dreamer 9mo ago
it absolutely does. their position is "deepfakes are OK so long as we're the ones doing it"

cdrnsf 9mo ago

It's propaganda, plain and simple. "The government... the American government - they're sneaky, they're very deceitful, they're liars, they're cheats, they're rip-offs. I mean, the American government is one-- is one systematic government that... that nobody can trust. I don't trust them myself"

amelius 9mo ago
Yes, spreading FUD, basically.

huhkerrf 9mo ago

This is just so absolutely stupid. This group of people have somehow got it in their heads that their primary job is owning the libs, and not governing. Independent of your views on immigration, or law and order, or anything. Juvenile shit like this does absolutely nothing to advance any policy goals. Even worse, why should you average normie trust any image that comes out from the White House? If there's a serious national security issue, why are we going to trust a group of people who are willing to doctor a photo for such stupid ends?

watwut 9mo ago
> This group of people have somehow got it in their heads that their primary job is owning the libs, and not governing. Their voters wanted exactly that tho. Although they did not wanted harm for themselves, conservatives and republicans actively wanted this kind of "owning the libs" and insulting "the libs". This part is literally what the vote was about.
- luma 9mo ago
  Every Republican you know, including a substantial percentage of the users here, is directly responsible for what we have in front of us today. This is precisely the thing they voted for.
  - palmotea 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - fzeroracer 9mo ago
      This is nonsense, I'm sorry. Trump literally got elected off of pure partisan vilification, insults and just bullshit in general. The idea that the left need to go high while Trump and the GOP openly courted shit like pizzagate is just nonsense. The fact that the dems are weak assholes unable to make even symbolic measures towards someone that's openly violating the constitution and harassing citizens is symptomatic of the deeper rot of attempting to be a 'big tent' party and having zero actual spine or policy.

haritha-j 9mo ago

The title is a bit misleading, at least, I interpreted it wrong. The white house took a photo of a woman who was arrested, but expressionless, and used AI to make it look like she was crying. Insanely disgusting behaviour.

jagged-chisel 9mo ago
I’m genuinely curious about how this title was misleading. I have not heard anything about this issue until this link on HN. I did indeed assume the crying was added by AI at the behest of White House staff. Please don’t misread: I am genuinely curious how I one may have read this another way and how that could have been helped with rewording.
- Planktonne 9mo ago
  Two things, I think: 1. "Defends" suggests some level of explanation and justification; the White House did not present any here. 2. "AI image showing arrested woman" could mean a fully-generated image of a woman, rather than editing an image of an existing person under law enforcement control to disguise the actual facts. The first one would be bizarre, the second one is much more problematic.
  - Larrikin 9mo ago
    There is no meaningful difference between a 100% percent fabricated image and a some slightly smaller percentage of a digitally manipulated image when presented from the government as fact. There's no need to split hairs.
    - Planktonne 9mo ago
      It's the difference between drawing a cartoon and editing a photograph; the second one is a definite attempt to misrepresent matters of fact, the first could be argued to be illustrative only.
      - 9mo ago

echelon_musk 9mo ago

The White House said "The memes will continue". Dodging the direct question while at the same time admitting it is a doctored image as it qualifies as a 'meme'. Obviously it masquerades as truth and this is terrifying deception. What should I expect from the same administration that also altered the (tiny fraction of) Epstein files before releasing them.

fuzzfactor 9mo ago
The memes will continue until the torture is more widely tolerated.

ck2 9mo ago

It's the non-stop openly lying to judges in court that should be the worldwide newspaper headline That's some post-constitutional anti-democracy bullsh*t right there that should have zero tolerance because that means everything else is likely a lie. It's like a virus since he came down the golden escalator, first every single thing he said was a lie or wild exaggeration, and then he recruited exclusively only people around him to do the same. There's good reason the highest power positions in the government are HIS PERSONAL LAWYERS with legal obligation first to him beyond anything else.

Planktonne 9mo ago

The article title is overly kind; the White House didn't defend the image, they dismissed it as an issue. This reporting presents it as a debate with reasoning on both sides, rather than a brazen act with no defence supplied. It's not good journalism to legitimise a position that didn't even attempt to legitimise itself.

roxolotl 9mo ago
This has been the story the whole time. Coupled with the insistence the media is unfair they’ve managed to shift the window of what is acceptable. It’s been remarkably effective and most news sources seemingly have no counter.
- piltdownman 9mo ago
  It's not even about whats acceptable, it's about what they can frame as a narrative for their supporters in as incendiary a manner as possible. Remember that the FCC investigations into Comcast and NBCUniversal weren't predicated on political bias or uneven reporting, but rather that they '...may be promoting invidious forms of DEI in a manner that does not comply with FCC regulations.” Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, summarises its mechanisms and intent quite succinctly: “This is the path that Viktor Orbán took in Hungary, where you use the power of the state to ensure that the media is compliant, that outlets are either curbed and become much less willing to be critical, or they are sold to owners who will make that happen."
  - roxolotl 9mo ago
    I don’t disagree that’s a lot of it, and with Hungary as my possible second citizenship have been following Orban closely. I do think there’s something different happening here though. The loop is: - Do something wildly unacceptable - Media writes an article declaring the action is indefensible - Those involved complain publicly about the unfair nature of the story; their supporters back them up - Next time to avoid controversy media writes a slightly more fair story It doesn’t even require state power because technically in the US they cannot. There is clearly threat of power kicking journalists out of the pentagon is a clear example. But it’s much more about creating a permission structure through public airing of grievances.

Larrikin 9mo ago

Distract from the pedophile issue with memes while grifting billions from the US. Trump did not have enough pay the money from his rape case. Now a year later through bribes and making Americans poorer with tariffs he personally has earned over a billion dollars. Greenland conquering gave him a couple extra weeks to break the law and only release the 1 percent of photos from the Epstein files that had Clinton in them.

blitzar 9mo ago

Those who can do; those that can't meme and make fake images.

shrubble 9mo ago
The cynical part of me thinks it’s because she wasn’t crying in real life.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 9mo ago
  She didn't appear sufficiently "owned" and the police didn't appear sufficiently cruel. Why don't more people feel insulted when lied to?
UncleMeat 9mo ago
I believe that it is under discussed just how much AI has become the aesthetic of modern fascism.
cosmicgadget 9mo ago
When reality doesn't convey your message, change reality.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

mexicocitinluez 9mo ago

My lord, the absolute irony in a large subset of Americans believing the government was over-reaching only to find themselves supporting the government quite literally re-writing history.

MichaelNolan 9mo ago

Direct link instead of live view - https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ce9yydgmzdvt?post=asset%3Aaec7368e-3986-43fd-a11d-75572a0b7d33#post https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ce9yydgmzdvt?post=asset%3Aaec7...

racktash 9mo ago

We're well past the point where (and it's ever growing) evidence of Trumpism's tyranny and cruelty will sway anyone, I think. As depressing as it is, a large swathe of people just do not and cannot care. I remain shocked that the March CECOT deportations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2025_American_deportations_of_Venezuelans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2025_American_deportatio...) is largely untalked about now. Yes, many months have passed, but the blatant human rights violations involved remain truly shocking to me.

jwx48 9mo ago
There was, I believe, a hairdresser rounded up by ICE and sent to CECOT with images/video of his head getting shaved and audio of him crying for his mother. I think about him all the time, and wonder what happened to him because it's so horrific. He doesn't strike me as the kind of person who would survive a situation like that, and yet nothing on his status, or his family, has noticably trickled out as information in the last nine or 10 months. My short little comment here will do nothing to encompass the context of the situation, but to have this humiliating experience documented and highlighted only to have it disappear so quickly and easily it's downright depressing.
- tim333 9mo ago
  I think it's this guy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/28/cecot-el-salvador-venezuela-immigration https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/28/cecot-el-sal... Released and back with family in Venez.

moribvndvs 9mo ago

> a church service in Minnesota last Sunday, where a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is a pastor. Wait, what?

rsynnott 9mo ago
I assume he really mostly likes the cruxifixction bit of the story.
NoGravitas 9mo ago
American Christianity is a deeply twisted heresy that worships the Demiurge.
insane_dreamer 9mo ago
The KKK was deeply evangelical Christian.

rsynnott 9mo ago

There's something deeply _sick_ about this regime.

krapp 9mo ago
This regime is just a symptom, it didn't emerge from a vacuum, rather it's a manifestation of the culture that nourishes it. This sort of vindictive cruelty and mockery is what voters liked most about Trump, they found it refreshing. What's deeply sick is the society that voted this regime into power - twice - and still supports it. And I'm including the "leftists" who decided a second Trump term was preferable to the "status quo" under Kamala Harris, or that it didn't matter because "both parties were the same." There's a special circle of Hell reserved for that lot.
- insane_dreamer 9mo ago
  Trump 1.0 I dismissed as an aberration, but Trump 2.0 has truly exposed the inhumanity of a significant segment of US society, that was always there beneath the surface since slavery and Jim Crow just waiting for "normalization" that would allow it to re-emerge. I was naive about the progress the US had made over the last century, and it has been a rude awakening. I no longer want to raise my kids here and am actively working towards emigrating.

tavavex 9mo ago

Aaand it's flagged. Can someone explain to me how an article about one of the world's most influential governments posting digitally altered imagery as fact is off-topic in regards to tech and computer science?

krapp 9mo ago
"politics." "we only want curious conversation here." "if it would be covered on tv it's probably off topic." You know the drill.