this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
128 points (94.4% liked)

Ask Lemmy

40424 readers
1378 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world


7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] shittydwarf@piefed.ca 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Fair enough. Are they gluing his eyes open? Is it an old picture? Is it AI? What's your theory?

[–] kabe@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

A few years ago, I would have dismissed this type of thing as tinfoilhattery, but hear me out.

Don't you think the way the newspaper is incorporated into the shot is odd? The positioning is strange -- like it doesn't quite belong with its surroundings.

Well, what if someone took an old photo and used AI to add today's newspaper in at the bottom of the frame? When you zoom in on the newspaper headline, it looks like gibberish.

Hand holding newspaper

Could it be compression artifacts? Maybe. But even then, the shape of the letters looks very odd. Doesn't even look like English.

If no stronger evidence materializes, I reckon this is a fake intended to buy some time.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 15 points 2 days ago

Normally I would also call the conspiracy stuff silly. But so often now the Trump administration has done the stupidest things to buy "just two weeks" as if expecting some undefined miracle to save them, then when it doesn't just doubling down again and again. I could imagine them doing this.

[–] leadore@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Look at the blurry area all around the end of the index(?) finger, like a sloppy photoshop edit.

[–] eestileib@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

The area around the index finger is really odd yeah

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

his smile and glasses look 'edited'

[–] kabe@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

He also appears to be in suspiciously ruddy health for an 84-year-old man who's supposedly been at death's door for weeks. I don't buy it.

[–] NRay7882@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I thought the same at first and looked up the Sunday copy, to me it does look like artifacting.

https://x.com/ScottNover/status/2076482114522866169

[–] EndOfLine@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Just going to add for conspiracy enthusiasts that the paper in the photo is from the Washington Post. A paper owned by Republican devotee billionaire with their own AI company and an army of developers with ample digital media experience, Jeff Bezos. Even if Bezos was not directly involved in creating a deep fake, it's not unreasonable to suspect that he provided an advanced copy of that page of the paper for others to do whatever they wanted. 🤔

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Dude the post is owned by Bezos

Edit: just to be clear though the paper in the photo looks very suspicious

[–] EndOfLine@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Curses! I got the wrong billionaire. Thanks. Let me correct my conspiracy theory.

Kinda weird that the only change I had to make was the name.

Personally? Deepfakes.

[–] Hegar@fedia.io 3 points 2 days ago

I heard the hollywood thing of closing someone's eyes doesn't work because your eyelids just stay open after you die - you'd have to hold them closed.

I don't think they'd have to glue his eyes open, is my point.