Image of 'huge nighttime march for ex-Pakistan PM' bears AI signs

As supporters of Pakistan's jailed former leader Imran Khan marched towards the capital Islamabad in early October to call for his release, an image appearing to be a huge crowd gathered on a winding road under a full moon has been shared with a false claim that it showed the march. The image, however, bore signs it had been generated using artificial intelligence (AI).

"The caravan of Peshawar departs for D-Chowk. Night to remember. We worship You (Allah) and seek help from You," read the caption to the image written in a mix of Urdu, English and Arabic shared on Facebook on October 4, 2024.

Peshawar is the capital of Khan's powerbase northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province while D-Chowk refers to an interchange in Islamabad located near key buildings including the Parliament House, the Presidential Palace and the Supreme Court (archived link).

The image -- shared more than 140 times -- appeared to show a long trail of people and vehicles moving under a moonlit sky on a road snaking through hills. It bore a watermark that read "Bilal AI" in the upper left corner.

The post surfaced as activists from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party began driving to Islamabad from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but were met with shipping container roadblocks and volleys of tear gas (archived link).

The capital was locked down, swarmed by security forces with mobile Internet cut as the jailed former leader's supporters attempted to seize the streets in protest.

Khan has been in jail since 2023 on several charges, some still pending in the courts, which he insisted were designed to prevent him from returning to office.

The image was also shared alongside similar false claims on Facebook, Threads and YouTube.

Comments to the posts indicated some believed the image was genuine.

"People have come out now," one wrote.

"Don't mess with the flood of people, you (government) will destroy yourself," another said.

Signs of AI

Siwei Lyu, director of Media Forensic Lab at the University of Buffalo, told AFP on October 16 that the image bore visual inconsistencies, suggesting it was AI-generated.

"The proportions of the people in the image are inconsistent and some individuals appear disproportionately small," he said.

Below is an image sent to AFP by Lyu with the inconsistencies highlighted:

Moreover, the circulating image appeared to show a full moon, but the moon was in its waxing phase at the time when Khan's supporters were marching to Islamabad (archived link).

AFP has repeatedly debunked misinformation about Khan.