Images and videos of mass migration into Ceuta, which borders Morocco, quickly spread across social media after tens of thousands of migrants rushed into the Spanish territory last week.
Mixed in with genuine reports about the crisis, which saw roughly 72,000 people from Morocco cross into Ceuta, was a wave of misleading visuals, including AI-generated images presented as authentic news photographs and recycled videos falsely linked to the crossings.
One example is this dramatic image purportedly showing a "soldier" raising a large rock above a migrant climbing an embankment, which was shared on YouTube, X and Reddit.
The photograph was also shared on Instagram and credited to the news agency Reuters.
However, there is no evidence that Reuters published this image. We ran it through the verification tool of artificial intelligence research company OpenAI, which found that it was generated using its own software.
