All Eyes on Rafah: viral post uses AI in service of Gaza activism. Is it ethical?
- An image shared by millions in response to an Israeli strike that killed dozens of civilians represents a new form of AI-generated activist imagery
- The technology can help circumvent censorship, but critics say such posts offer a sanitised version of events while journalists struggle to share real photos
The refugee tents stretch out across a vast sandy desert – tens of thousands lined up in neat rows, some organised in the centre to spell out: “All Eyes on Rafah.”
It is a viral post shared by millions of people across the globe – including Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Bridgerton actress Nicola Coughlan, and model Bella Hadid – in response to Israel’s missile strike on Sunday that killed dozens of civilians in a camp for displaced Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip city.
But the image, which features blurring, unusual shadows and pattern repetition typical of artificial intelligence, appears to be fake. Experts say it represents a new form of AI-generated activist imagery.
“It’s one of the first major examples of AI being used in viral activism,” said Matt Navarra, a social media consultant based in the United Kingdom. “This is an evolution of what we’ve seen before in using social media platforms to generate a message that potentially can go viral and draw the media and politicians’ attention to a particular cause.”
Generating an image from AI, Navarra said, can allow activists to avoid breaching copyright or circumvent social media platform rules on violence and incitement.
