"A tweet about a Pentagon explosion was fake. It still went viral.", 22 May 2023

...[A] verified Twitter account called Bloomberg Feed shared an ominous tweet. Beneath the words, “Large Explosion near The Pentagon Complex in Washington, D.C. - Initial Report,” it showed an image of a huge plume of black smoke next to a vaguely Pentagon-like building. On closer inspection, the image was a fake, likely generated by artificial intelligence, and the report of an explosion was quickly debunked — though not before it was picked up by large accounts, including the Russian state media organ Russia Today. The tweet may have also briefly moved the stock market, as the Dow Jones Industrial Index dropped 85 points within four minutes, then rebounded just as quickly.

...All in all, the hoax — the latest in a string of AI-generated images to fool some social media users — appears to have done little immediate damage. Twitter has since suspended the Bloomberg Feed account, which was not related to the real Bloomberg media organization, and within about 20 minutes, local authorities had debunked the report.

Yet the mechanisms involved, from the image’s amplification by large propaganda accounts to the almost instantaneous response from the stock market, suggest the potential for more such mischief if AI tools continue to make inroads in fields such as social media moderation, news writing and stock trading.

And Twitter is looking like an increasingly likely vector, as new owner Elon Musk has gutted its human workforce, laid off a team that used to fact-check viral trends, and changed account verification from a manual authentication process to one that’s largely automated and pay-for-play. The signature blue badges once indicated authority for public figures, large organizations, celebrities and others at risk of impersonation. Now, Twitter awards them to any one willing to pay $8 a month and confirm their phone number.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment...