As Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, photographs and videos have captured large crowds of energetic supporters gathering at the campaign events to support the Democratic Party ticket.
Several posts on social media claim that some of these images are inauthentic—that the crowds pictured at a Harris campaign rally in Michigan last week have been digitally added by artificial intelligence technology.
For example, right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza—creator of the 2000 Mules documentary recently pulled by its producer Salem Media for spreading disinformation about voter fraud in the 2020 election—was among the first to suggest on Saturday that the image was doctored. “Check the reflection in the plane,” D’Souza said. “Does this look like a real picture to you?”
However, these claims are false. The crowds depicted in the images at Harris’ campaign rally at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport were not faked or digitally altered, but are clearly visible in other photos and videos taken at the campaign event.
The viral image used in several posts and shared by former President Donald Trump was initially posted to X by Harris campaign staffer Bhavik Lathia, who credited another campaign official, Ben Sarle, for taking the picture. Less than 30 minutes before Lathia shared the image, he shared a video of the same Detroit airport campaign event.
C-SPAN’s live footage of the Detroit airport campaign rally also depicted the large crowds gathered around Air Force Two. Meanwhile, Reuters photographer Elizabeth Frantz also featured the crowds in an image taken from a slightly different vantage point than Lathia, as did Anadolu Agency photographer Adam J. Dewey.
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