Image of Donald Trump with teenage girl is likely AI-creation
What was claimed
An image shows Donald Trump at Epstein’s private island dancing with a 13-year-old girl when he was in his 50s.
Our verdict
This image isn’t real. There are several signs that it was likely generated with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
A picture that supposedly shows Donald Trump with a young girl is being shared on social media, but it is not genuine.
The image has been posted on Threads with overlaid text saying: “Photo of Donald Trump at Epstein’s private island Dancing with a 13 year old girl.
“Trump was in his 50’s when this was taken. what kind of man does that? [sic]”
But this isn’t a real picture, and has been debunked many times before.
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Professor Hany Farid, of the University of California, Berkeley, who specialises in digital forensics, misinformation and image analysis, told the Associated Press (AP) that the image has the hallmarks of being created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
These include the girl’s right forearm, which is unnaturally elongated, and her thumb (which can be seen as her hand disappears into the crook of President Trump’s arm) is distorted and lacking detail.
A larger, uncropped version of the same image shows that the hand of the man in the background on the left of the picture is also distorted, and appears to have six fingers.
As our guide to spotting AI-generated images explains, AI often makes mistakes with hands, especially with the number of fingers it creates.
A number of other fact checking organisations have also concluded the image is fake. Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Mr Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, also confirmed to AP in 2023 that the image was not real.
We have also previously fact checked other AI-generated images of President Trump, which falsely depict him with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and are often shared with claims they show the men at parties or on Epstein’s island in the United States Virgin Islands.
However, while these images were faked—there are genuine images and video footage of the two men together.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Before sharing an image that you see on social media, take a second look and consider whether it could have been created or altered with AI. Our recent blog discussed the best tools and tips to help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because the image isn’t genuine, and was likely created using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
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