Adobe Caught Selling AI-Generated Images As Actual Photos of Israel “Violence”
Adobe Caught Selling AI-Generated Images As Actual Photos of Israel “Violence”
The propaganda war is taking place on both sides of the Israel-Hamas fiasco, which is diverting Americans’ eyes from the invasion taking place in our own country. If we aren’t getting false reports, we’re getting Artificial Intelligence pictures that are not real or we’re allowing some people to control the narrative and don’t want to be questioned about anything. Adobe has now been busted selling AI-generated pictures that depict the war in Israel as though they are authentic.
On Monday’s The Sons of Liberty radio, I pointed out some of these things with actual video to show what is going on. Among those videos, I presented former Israeli Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky, who told us just how Israel controls the narrative with propaganda.
Of course, our own CIA knows how to put out disinformation as well.
Yahoo News reports:
Software giant Adobe has been caught selling AI-generated images of the Israel-Hamas war, as first spotted by Australian news outlet Crikey, a shocking and morally reprehensible instance of a company directly profiting from the spread of misinformation online.
A quick search on the company’s Adobe Stock website — a service that offers subscription customers access to a library of generic stock images and now AI-shots as well — for “conflict between Israel and Palestine” comes up with photorealistic images of explosions in high-density urban environments that closely resemble the real-life carnage currently unfolding in Gaza.
Another image shows a “mother and child in destroyed city in Palestine Israel war conflict,” a devastating framing that was entirely AI-generated. In fact, it’s one of a series of 33 images that all show a similar composition.
These images all appear to have been submitted by Adobe Stock users and were seemingly not generated by Adobe itself.
However, while they’re technically tagged as being “generated with AI,” a requirement for all user-submitted works, some of these images are already making their rounds on other parts of the web, as Crikey found, which could easily mislead unsuspecting members of the public.
A simple reverse image search on Google confirms this, with one photorealistic AI image of a huge explosion being used by a number of small publications.
After all, without closely examining these images for telltale signs of having been generated by an AI, like misaligned windows or mismatched lighting and shadows, they could easily pass for the real thing.
AI image generators like OpenAI’s DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney have made massive technological leaps over the last 12 months. Long gone are the days of obvious glitches or horrifying animal monstrosities.
Consequently, AI-generated images are getting huge amounts of visibility online. Earlier this year, Futurism found that the top image result on Google for the name of famed realist artist Edward Hopper was an AI fake.
Instead of treading into the world of generative AI carefully, Adobe has chosen to embrace the tech with enthusiasm.
Noah Beck adds:
The adage that “journalism is the first draft of history” understates the impact that journalists have on the present, given that their reporting can change perceptions and public discourse in a way that shapes the history being recorded in that first draft.
The media’s ethical duties and challenges are among the greatest when it comes to reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an issue plagued by misinformation and disinformation, and where passions are inflamed by reports that can quickly affect events on the ground. Compounding those concerns is the broader geopolitical context of reporting in the Middle East, a volatile region of proxy wars, terrorism by state and non-state actors, and nuclear weapons and proliferation.
Failures to adhere to journalistic standards can perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by creating a moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel that leads global public opinion and world leaders to pressure Israel into allowing a baby-burning terror group at its doorstep to prepare for the next round of war, within months after the latest round of violence, rather than allowing Israel to defeat Hamas once and for all.
Through defamatory allegations of “genocide,” anti-Israel activists add to the global pressure on Israel that prevents it from militarily eliminating the Hamas threat, a necessary step towards any improvement in the lives of both Gazans and Israelis, given Hamas’ commitment to killing all of the Jews in the world (as the organization clearly states in its charter). So while activists and the media outlets that quote them (like Al Jazeera) ignore the very genocidal elements in Hamas’ foundational document, they will absurdly allege that Israel is engaged in a “genocide” against Gaza, but never explain why such a powerful army needs nearly two decades and multiple wars to accomplish this “genocide,” when the Israeli military could easily do so in a day.
It is Israel’s own extraordinarily high ethical standards that have prevented it from committing “genocide,” despite countless vicious Hamas attacks whose barbarism has gotten progressively worse over the last few decades, culminating in the October 7th slaughter of 1,400 Israelis, which is the equivalent of almost 52,000 deaths in the USA – about seventeen September 11s in one day, or about 1.3 times the 39,000 people killed by the nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. And the horrific savagery of those murders even in far smaller numbers would likely prompt most militaries in the world to act far more aggressively and decisively than Israel has thus far. Indeed, it is the many battlefield advantages that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) concedes to its enemies, in order to comply with the IDF’s exceptionally high ethical code, that have led observers, including British military expert and war hero Richard Kemp, to note that the IDF is the most moral army in the world. In the October 9, 2009 debate on the infamous Goldstone Report issued in the wake of Operation Cast Lead, Colonel c
Yet journalists quickly forget these ethically crucial details and too often fail to provide critical context for those trying to gain a meaningful understanding of the conflict and the moral character of each side. And the international community – fueled by the unethical and/or sloppy reporting of so many journalists – forces Israel into accepting military half-measures that simply bring a temporary “quiet” to the region. Tragically, the international pressure for cease fires that allow the root problem of Hamas to fester have proven to be utterly counterproductive, even from the perspective of those claiming to care about the Palestinians, because leaving Hamas in power condemns Gazans to indefinite suffering with only brief respites that end as soon as Hamas decides once again to launch violent attacks against its northern neighbor.
But bad journalism does more than perpetuate the conflict – it actually aggravates it. By omitting crucial context or publishing inflammatory rumors rather than verified facts, the news media fuel a dangerous strategy preferred by Palestinians: inciting fury on the Arab street (often by claiming that Jews are endangering the Al-Aqsa mosque or grossly exaggerating Palestinian casualty figures, as with the 2002 libelously labeled “massacre” in Jenin). The more the Arab street is enraged by misleadingly incomplete or patently false news, the more likely an already combustible situation can quickly spin out of control, with more attacks on Israel by “lone-wolf” attackers, terrorist groups, and/or Arab states feeling public pressure to jump into the fray (as is the current concern with Lebanon, a failed state that is effectively ruled by the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah).
The idea that is “Israel is losing the media war” or “Israel has to step up its PR game” (!) is a false premise. You cannot win in a fixed game. You cannot win when the deck is stacked against you. At this point, it’s life or death for Israel and it is my fervent hope that Israel stops subduing and supplicating itself to the annihilationist forces that are working furiously to see its end.
The blood libels and false news is coming from the media and inside the tech industry.
AI Propaganda Photo's created to cause the maximum amount of Racial Hatred, to create total outrage and disgust at an Evil Criminal Terrorist enemy called Hamas, Al-Qaida, Isis,Hezbollah,Muslim Brotherhood, or Israel... Here are many examples of propaganda AI pics all on one big theme of the "Terrible loss of life" and one's built in FEAR of "Total loss of family livelihood with a totally unknown and unforeseen future ahead": The KHAZARIAN MAFIA are the REAL problem here and all around the world they are the ones behind the puppet people who create all this Disgusting Hateful Racist Luciferian Garbage Propaganda. They Are the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN and the KHAZARIAN Jews at the helm are the same Jews Jesus talk about in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 quote: Revelation 2:9 “I know your works, tribulation, and poverty (but you are rich); and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. and, Revelation 3:9 Indeed I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie—indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you. The KHAZARIAN MAFIA is made up of mostly Zionist False Jews but there are also Christian LDS Zionist and the Cryto Zionist Catholics and Cryto Jews At the core are a group of about 38 Billionaires - Trillionaires who answer to another level of 7 Super Chabad Lubavitch Luciferian Khazar Masters who then answer to the ALL SEEING EYE at the top of the Satanic Power Pyramid LUCIFER HIMSELF... These Evil Spiritual Powers and Principalities of Satan have existed since the very beginning and have simply evolved over the centuries and grown into the most Evil Secret Society mankind has ever seen. It all started with the descendants of CAIN who all inherited his satanic seedline Bloodline and mark God put on Cain. The Canaanite Bloodline has evolved down to survive past the Deluge of the great Flood through the son of Noah Ham's wife a Canaanite herself to there son Canaan who was himself cursed by God
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Unethical Gaza Reporting Cuts Crucial Context
by Noah Beck
Special to IPT News
November 5, 2023
The media's ethical duties and challenges are among the greatest when it comes to reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an issue plagued by misinformation and disinformation, and where passions are inflamed by reports that can quickly affect events on the ground. Compounding those concerns is the broader geopolitical context of reporting in the Middle East, a volatile region of proxy wars, terrorism by state and non-state actors, and nuclear weapons and proliferation.
Failures to adhere to journalistic standards can perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by creating a moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel that leads global public opinion and world leaders to pressure Israel into allowing a baby-burning terror group at its doorstep to prepare for the next round of war, within months after the latest round of violence, rather than allowing Israel to defeat Hamas once and for all.
Through defamatory allegations of "genocide," anti-Israel activists add to the global pressure on Israel that prevents it from militarily eliminating the Hamas threat, a necessary step towards any improvement in the lives of both Gazans and Israelis, given Hamas' commitment to killing all of the Jews in the world (as the organization clearly states in its charter). So while activists and the media outlets that quote them (like Al Jazeera) ignore the very genocidal elements in Hamas' foundational document, they will absurdly allege that Israel is engaged in a "genocide" against Gaza, but never explain why such a powerful army needs nearly two decades and multiple wars to accomplish this "genocide," when the Israeli military could easily do so in a day.
It is Israel's own extraordinarily high ethical standards that have prevented it from committing "genocide," despite countless vicious Hamas attacks whose barbarism has gotten progressively worse over the last few decades, culminating in the October 7th slaughter of 1,400 Israelis, which is the equivalent of almost 52,000 deaths in the USA – about seventeen September 11s in one day, or about 1.3 times the 39,000 people killed by the nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. And the horrific savagery of those murders even in far smaller numbers would likely prompt most militaries in the world to act far more aggressively and decisively than Israel has thus far. Indeed, it is the many battlefield advantages that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) concedes to its enemies, in order to comply with the IDF's exceptionally high ethical code, that have led observers, including British military expert and war hero Richard Kemp, to note that the IDF is the most moral army in the world. In the October 9, 2009 debate on the infamous Goldstone Report issued in the wake of Operation Cast Lead, Colonel Kemp asserted that "the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare."
Yet journalists quickly forget these ethically crucial details and too often fail to provide critical context for those trying to gain a meaningful understanding of the conflict and the moral character of each side. And the international community – fueled by the unethical and/or sloppy reporting of so many journalists – forces Israel into accepting military half-measures that simply bring a temporary "quiet" to the region. Tragically, the international pressure for cease fires that allow the root problem of Hamas to fester have proven to be utterly counterproductive, even from the perspective of those claiming to care about the Palestinians, because leaving Hamas in power condemns Gazans to indefinite suffering with only brief respites that end as soon as Hamas decides once again to launch violent attacks against its northern neighbor.
But bad journalism does more than perpetuate the conflict – it actually aggravates it. By omitting crucial context or publishing inflammatory rumors rather than verified facts, the news media fuel a dangerous strategy preferred by Palestinians: inciting fury on the Arab street (often by claiming that Jews are endangering the Al-Aqsa mosque or grossly exaggerating Palestinian casualty figures, as with the 2002 libelously labeled "massacre" in Jenin). The more the Arab street is enraged by misleadingly incomplete or patently false news, the more likely an already combustible situation can quickly spin out of control, with more attacks on Israel by "lone-wolf" attackers, terrorist groups, and/or Arab states feeling public pressure to jump into the fray (as is the current concern with Lebanon, a failed state that is effectively ruled by the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah).
And even when the conflict of the day finally calms down, after however many lives have been lost and billions of dollars of damage has been done, the unethical news reports disseminated during the war will have still left their mark on the hearts and minds of the whole region and beyond, making it that much harder for Arab regimes to support any long-term peace agreement and/or apply any pressure on the Palestinians regarding their intransigence, incitement and terrorism.
As the saying goes, a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put its pants on. So when the hastily written first draft of history, produced without proper context or verification, travels far and wide, the damage is done. On the rare occasions that the news media admit their mistakes, there are no massive protests assembled on college campuses and in major cities around the world to vocally apologize for all of the previous marches and condemnations based on bad journalism. The United Nations doesn't retract any of its statements or resolutions that were issued in the wake of biased reporting.
When a crafty lawyer manages to display inadmissible evidence before a jury, the judge will instruct the jury to disregard that information, but every psychologist knows that the jurors' minds have been impacted in a way that cannot be easily undone. Similarly, the harms of unethical journalism inflicted upon Israel, a tiny, embattled democracy, persist long after the conflict being reported on has ended.
Part 2 of this story, Why Hamas is an Unreliable Source and How Many Reporters Fail to Disclose This, details the many reasons why Hamas is an extremely unreliable source and examines 8 examples of how different media outlets handle this fact when reporting on the latest death tolls in Gaza.
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
Copyright © 2023. Investigative Project on Terrorism. All rights reserved.
PART II
Why Hamas is an Unreliable Source and How Many Reporters Fail to Disclose This
by Noah Beck
Special to IPT News
November 6, 2023
The demands of a fast-moving story can greatly increase the challenges confronting the media, but the ethical code of the International Federation of Journalists (representing 600,000 media professionals from 140 countries) specifically requires that "urgency...in the dissemination of information shall not take precedence over the verification of facts, sources..."
But when covering the latest round of violence sparked by the massacre that Hamas committed against Israeli civilians on October 7th, reporters often fail to remind readers of several crucial facts relevant to the reliability of information sourced from Hamas:
1) There are no checks and balances on Hamas from any governmental or political institution. It is a de facto Islamist dictatorship with a tyrannical rule akin to that of the Taliban.
2) There is no freedom of speech or assembly under Hamas in Gaza.
A 2018 Human Rights Watch report states that:
"...the PA and Hamas use detention to punish critics and deter them and others from further activism. In detention, security forces routinely taunt, threaten, beat, and force detainees into painful stress positions for hours at a time.
A 2019 New York Times article ("Hamas Crackdown on Gaza Protests Instills Fear") reports:
"Hamas security forces moved quickly to quell the protests that brought hundreds of people into the streets in at least four camps and towns across Gaza this month to demand better living conditions. The security forces beat demonstrators, raided homes and detained organizers, journalists and participants, about 1,000 people in all.
A 2022 report by Amnesty International concludes that:
"Authorities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip continued to unduly restrict freedom of expression, association and assembly, at times using excessive force to disperse peaceful gatherings."
3) There is no freedom of the press in Gaza.
In 2016, Human Rights Watch reported that "The Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza are arresting, abusing, and criminally charging journalists and activists who express peaceful criticism of the authorities."
An Al-Monitor article dated November 7, 2022 exposes some cases where a journalist is arrested or his family threatened for reporting stories unfavorable to Hamas.
An August 11, 2022 Israel Hayom article reported that Hamas ordered journalists and local Gazans working with them not to report on Islamic Jihad rockets hitting inside Gaza, and to blame Israel for the latest conflict. Hamas has also barred Gazans from working for or being interviewed by Israeli media.
Hamas control of the Western press is particularly relevant when it comes to reporting anything contrary to Hamas' preferred narrative in any conflict with Israel, given how much the Western media obsesses over that conflict. As the Times of Israel reported on July 28, 2014: "Several Western journalists currently working in Gaza have been harassed and threatened by Hamas for documenting cases of the terrorist group's involvement of civilians in warfare against Israel."
4) There is no adequate justice system where any of Hamas' abuses could be fairly addressed. An October 2012 report by Human Rights Watch noted that "Palestinians face serious abuses in the Hamas criminal justice system, including arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention, torture, and unfair trials."
5) Most important of all, in stark contrast to the information provided by Israeli government officials, hospitals, and other sources, Hamas faces no consequences for lying. Global sympathy for Gazans is virtually guaranteed, even after they commit the worst mass atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust, as the many pro-Hamas protests around the world have amply established. Humanitarian aid will continue to flow to Gaza even if Hamas is caught lying. So the incentive to do the hard work of investigating, fact-checking and telling the truth, however unfavorable, will be lower in Gaza than in perhaps any other place.
Indeed, with the October 17th Al-Ahli Arab hospital explosion, Hamas swiftly exploited the PR value of the incident, blaming an Israeli airstrike and claiming over 500 civilian dead. Such an inflammatory allegation – issued long before any thorough investigation into the facts could possibly be completed – could instantly turn global public opinion against Israel.
Yet the Hamas accusation was reflexively reported by many, including Al Jazeera, Associated Press, and Time. None of these mentioned that the casualty count couldn't be independently verified, or that initial death tolls reported from a war zone are notoriously unreliable – especially when coming from a cynical source like Hamas.
So when news organizations reporting on Gaza rely on Hamas for information without clearly disclosing that source and the reasons for distrusting it, they fail in their basic journalistic duties, because the source determines the difference between news and lies.
Keeping in mind the crucial context about Hamas' tyrannical rule of Gaza and its brutal control of people and information there, here is a comparison of how various news organizations reported on the Hamas claim that as of October 23, over 5,000 Gazans had been killed by Israel's response to Hamas' October 7th massacre. The relevant language is highlighted to show a breach of (or compliance with) the obligation to inform readers that (a) the information about the number of dead and injured comes from Hamas and (b) such a source implies that the reported information is far less likely to be accurate or reliable.
EXAMPLES OF BAD JOURNALISM
— MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
As Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip entered its 17th day today, the death toll climbed to over 5,085, according to latest reports, amid an increase in air strikes, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.
— CNN
(relies on the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health, which likely gets its Gaza information from Hamas as well. Indeed, the reported casualty figures – 5,087 dead and 15,273 injured – are identical).
As of Monday, at least 5,087 people have been killed in Gaza, and 15,273 have been injured since October 7, the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health in the occupied West Bank reported.
— BBC
More than 5,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in air and artillery strikes carried out by the Israeli military in response, according to Gaza's health ministry.
— Washington Post (cites "Palestinian authorities" but then links to the Hamas-run Health ministry's Facebook page for its source)
Palestinian authorities said Israeli strikes have killed at least 5,087 people in Gaza and wounded more than 15,200.
EXAMPLES OF MEDIOCRE JOURNALISM (MENTIONS HAMAS OR SOME CAUTIONARY CONTEXT BUT NOT BOTH)
— MSNBC
Health authorities in Gaza said over 5,000 people have been killed since the Oct. 7 start of the war between Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel. More than 15,000 have been injured, the authorities said. MSNBC could not independently verify these numbers.
— THE GUARDIAN
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said at least 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since 7 October. It said the dead included 2,055 children. Additionally, it said 15,273 people had been wounded.
EXAMPLES OF PROPER JOURNALISM (MENTIONS HAMAS AS THE SOURCE AND INCLUDES CAUTIONARY CONTEXT)
— Euronews
On Monday, Hamas said 5,000 civilians had been killed by Israeli bombardment, but that figure cannot be independently verified, and Hamas has inflated casualty figures in the past.
— New York Times
The Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, reported a sharp rise in the death toll after Israel's latest barrage. The ministry said on Monday at least 436 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes "in the past hours," including 182 children. The statement brought the death toll in Gaza to more than 5,000 people, according to the ministry, since Israel began retaliating for the Hamas assaults of Oct. 7. The figures could not be independently verified, and Israel's military has sometimes accused Hamas of inflating the count.
It may surprise some observers that the New York Times made it into the best category of reporting in this particular comparison, considering the paper's abundant record of mistakes that are prejudicial to Israel (as copiously documented by CAMERA) and a general slant that led Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, to send a letter to the newspaper's executive editor last February, in which he sharply condemned the newspaper's "overt anti-Israel bias" and cited a detailed study in support of his claims.
However, the New York Times editors may have been more cautious when reporting casualties on October 23, because that same day the newspaper also published an acknowledgement that its October 17 coverage improperly repeated Hamas' claim that hundreds of Gazans were killed by an Israeli airstrike on Ahli Arab Hospital, an explosion widely attributed to an errant rocket fired by Islamic Jihad.
It's also worth noting that none of the 8 examples above remind readers about the general unreliability of information coming out of Gaza because it is so tightly controlled by a ruthless terrorist organization that swiftly prevents reporters from contradicting its narrative.
Still, the samples serve to highlight the breadth of reporting quality on one particular fact in a fast-evolving news story. That the New York Times showed improved performance on the particular detail being compared also demonstrates how a media outlet's journalistic integrity and quality can change from story to story – especially as readers, politicians, businesses, and others pressure news organizations to do a better job in meeting crucial journalistic standards, so that reporters can write the first draft of history more impartially while contributing as little as possible to the disasters recounted in that history.
END
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
Copyright © 2023. Investigative Project on Terrorism. All rights reserved.
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