By Nikita Mazurov
Publication Date: 2026-01-24 21:20:00
When the official White House X account posted an image depicting activist Nekima Levy Armstrong in tears during her arrest, there were telltale signs that the image had been altered.
Less than an hour before, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had posted a photo of the exact same scene, but in Noem’s version Levy Armstrong appeared composed, not crying in the least.
Seeking to determine if the White House version of the photo had been altered using artificial intelligence tools, we turned to Google’s SynthID – a detection mechanism that Google claims is able to discern whether an image or video was generated using Google’s own AI. We followed Google’s instructions and used its AI chatbot, Gemini, to see if the image contained SynthID forensic markers.
The results were clear: The White House image had been manipulated with Google’s AI. We published a story about it.
After posting the article, however, subsequent attempts to use Gemini to authenticate the…
