Maggie Harrison Dupré, Futurism:

The White House published an image on X in which the face of a protester had been altered using AI to depict her weeping during her arrest – instead of striking a stoic pose, as she actually looked during the event.

The woman in the image, civil rights attorney and organizer Nekima Levy Armstrong, was arrested this week after interrupting a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota.[…]

On Thursday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem published a photo on X of Levy Armstrong’s arrest. Levy Armstrong appears to be handcuffed as she was escorted through an office space by a federal agent. In this image, Levy Armstrong isn’t crying. She’s also wearing bright pink lipstick, and her mouth is closed.

Roughly 30 minutes later, things got decidedly more bizarre when the official White House X account also published an image on X purportedly depicting Levy Armstrong’s arrest. But in this version of the photo, Levy Armstrong is pictured sobbing, with visible tears streaming down her cheeks and her mouth open. Her pink lipstick, notably, is gone.

The White House post has a community note that the image was digitally altered, proving that even on the hell site, people still recognize bullshit.

White House spokesperson Kaelan Door defended the doctored photo, writing “The memes will continue.” A fake photograph presented as real on an official White House communications channel isn’t a meme. It’s propaganda.