The White House posted a digitally altered photograph of a protester who was arrested at a demonstration in Minnesota. The image, which was modified using artificial intelligence and posted on social media, shows the protester falsely crying.

The White House posted a digitally altered photo of a protester arrested in Minnesota

On Sunday, Nekima Levy-Armstrong, who is a civil rights lawyer and former candidate for Minneapolis mayor, was one of three people arrested on Thursday in connection to a protest that interrupted a church service in St Paul, Minnesota. The protest was held against David Easterwood, one of the pastors who allegedly held a position as acting field director of St Paul’s ICE office.

United States Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrests on Thursday, according to The Guardian. Shortly after, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a photo of the arrest. It shows a law enforcement agent with their face blurred out escorting Levy-Armstrong, who’s seen composed in the photo.

About 30 minutes after Noem shared the photo of Levy -Armstrong’s arrest, the White House posted an edited image in which she’s seen dramatically crying and her skin is depicted as darker than the original photo. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reposted the image.

Analysis conducted by The Guardian and The New York Times found that the image posted by the White House was digitally altered. The Times ran both the image posted by Noem and the one posted by the White House in Resemble.AI, which acts as an AI detection system. It was also able to create images nearly identical to the White House’s version using AI systems Gemini and Grok to modify the original image.

The White House responds to claims that the image of the protestor was digitally altered

The Guardian asked the White House if it had digitally altered the image. As a response, it shared a post on X from deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr.

“YET AGAIN to the people who feel the need to reflexively defend perpetrators of heinous crimes in our country I share with you this message: Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue. Thank you for your attention to this matter,” Dorr’s tweet read.

The White House and adjacent X accounts have posted several posts made with AI since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term. Some recent posts have included Trump shown as a king and as a fighter pilot dropping excrement on protestors.