Is the Image Showing a Large Crowd at CJP’s Protest AI-Generated? No, It’s Real!

The photo was taken by The Hindu's photographer, Shashi Shekhar Kashyap.

A real photo went viral with the false claim that it shows an AI-generated image of a large crowd at the CJP's protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A photo, taken at the Cockroach Janta Party's (CJP) protest held at Delhi's Jantar Mantar on 6 June is being widely shared on social media, where some users have claimed that the image is an AI-generated one.

• The claim is being shared to insinuate that the image was created to show a large crowd when there was low turnout at the protest.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

At the time of writing this report, this post by X user 'SanviSharm49500' had gathered over 1.5 lakh views.

(Archived versions of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: No, the claim is false, as the photo is a real one taken during the protest.

How did we find out the truth?: A reverse image search on the image led us to The Hindu's coverage of the CJP's protest.

• On scrolling through the article, we found that the same image had been published in the part where the article discussed Ladakhi activist Sonam Wangchuk joining the protest.

• The image was credited to one Shashi Shekhar Kashyap.

The image was part of The Hindu's coverage of the protest.

(Source: The Hindu/Screenshot)

• The same image was also published by the Frontline magazine's website, in an article about the CJP.

• A quick search for the photographer mentioned led us to an X post by The Hindu, reshared by Kashyap's account.

The image was taken and reshared by Kashyap.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

Not AI: To confirm that it was an authentic one, we ran the image through two AI content detectors.

• Hive Moderation's tool gave the image a zero percent likelihood of being an AI-generated one, noting that it was human-made.

The image was not made using AI.

(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)

Similarly, SightEngine, too, gave the image a one percent likelihood of being an AI-generated one, confirming that The Hindu had not used AI to create any part of the image.

The image is a real one.

(Source: SightEngine/Screenshot)

Conclusion: A real photo from the CJP's protest is being shared with the false claim that it shows an AI-generated image of a crowd.

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