AI fake: French farmers douse police officers with manure
A wave of disinformation related to French farmers’ protests on 11–12 November has been spreading across social media platforms, including Facebook, X, and TikTok. Users have been sharing videos that allegedly show farmers throwing manure at police officers and spraying them with waste from agricultural machinery. The posts are accompanied by emotional captions such as: “The media won’t show you this! Protests in France: police covered in manure!” However, as experts from Demagog have established, these videos were created using generative artificial intelligence (AI).
Details of the manipulation
One such post was published by the page “Legal Services Centre”, which has repeatedly promoted, among other things, anti-Ukrainian narratives. This suggests that such content is often used by disruptive actors to create chaos and undermine trust in law enforcement agencies in EU countries.
Signs of AI generation
A closer examination of the videos – especially when viewed in slow motion – reveals several telltale signs of AI-generated content:
- Figure anomalies: The faces of police officers frequently dissolve into blurred patches. AI systems still struggle to accurately reproduce fine human details in motion.
- Unnatural physics: The streams of mud and excrement appear unusually uniform and “plastic-like”, failing to interact with their surroundings according to the laws of physics.
- Verification by detection tools: Analysis of individual frames using the service TheHive.ai confirmed these suspicions, indicating with a 99% probability that the video was generated using artificial intelligence.
What is actually happening in France
The farmers’ protests are real and are driven by specific grievances and demands. Farmers are protesting against the culling of livestock due to an outbreak of lumpy skin disease and are also opposing the trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur countries in South America. There have indeed been incidents in which manure was dumped outside government buildings, but the videos circulating online that supposedly show police officers being sprayed with waste are fabricated.
The purpose of such manipulations is to radicalize public opinion and create an image of “total chaos” in Europe.