AI-generated image falsely shows Pakistan captain bowing to Indian cricketer

A photo circulating on Indian social media purports to show Pakistan national cricket team captain Fatima Sana kneeling down and touching the feet of Indian player Smriti Mandhana during the India vs Pakistan match at the International Cricket Council (ICC) Women’s World Cup on October 5.

The image was created using publicly available Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and is not real.

Claim

On October 6, a user on X, a platform formerly known as Twitter, shared a purported image of the Pakistan women’s cricket team captain bowing and touching the feet of Indian cricketer Smriti Mandhana during a match in Sri Lanka.

The accompanying image was captioned: “Pakistan captain Fatima Sana touches Smriti Mandana’s feet after her defeat against India in the World Cup.”

Similar claims were also shared on Facebook here, hereand here.

Fact

No such incident took place in the cricket match and the image circulating online has been created using AI tools.

Geographical control of data used two digital media forensic tools to verify the image. Both Attestiv and Hive Moderation found the image to be most likely AI-generated. Attestiv gave it a Tamper Score of 98, while Hive Moderation ranked it 77.3% likely created by AI.

Geographical control of data He also reviewed the full match of October 5 as well as its commentary. No incident of Fatima Sana touching Smriti Mandana’s feet was reported.

Verdict: The image showing Fatima Sana bowing to Smriti Mandhana is AI generated and does not depict an actual event.

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