A photo showing King Charles III and Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom (U.K.) beside a statue of former president Rodrigo Duterte that they supposedly commissioned is spreading on Facebook (FB).
This is fake and the image was generated through artificial intelligence (AI).
A reader sent a request through VERA Files’ Messenger Misinformation Tipline to verify the photo.
Uploaded on March 24, the photo showed the British royals inspecting a bronze topless statue of Duterte and was accompanied by this caption:
“wow na woww legit ba? Queen Camilla at Prince Charles ng UK pinagawan ng bronze na statue si President Duterte sa kanyang mga achievements sa Filipino Cumunity. Ctto
(Wow! Is this legit? Queen Camilla and Prince Charles of the U.K. have commissioned a bronze statue of President Duterte for his achievements for the Filipino Community. Ctto).”
The post also incorrectly referred to Charles as a prince. The longest serving Prince of Wales, he became King of the U.K. on Sept. 8, 2022 upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
Charles and Camilla had not commissioned nor unveiled a monument of Duterte. The official website of the British royal family, which keeps track of all their official engagements, has no record of such an event taking place.
VERA Files Fact Check ran the photo through the AI-detector tool Hive Moderation which showed that “it is likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content.”
SensityAI, another AI detection software, also flagged the photo as suspicious for having “fake content or a spoofing attempt.”
Posted by FB pages Jhane Channel, Boss Tambay and two FB users, the bogus photo garnered 345 interactions.
