On Monday a fake image purporting to show an explosion near the Pentagon spread so quickly and so widely that it appeared to cause a temporary dip in the stock market. The ease with which the picture caused public panic underscores how social media, and especially Twitter in its current form, is primed to create chaos by bombarding users with convincing disinformation. The hoax is also a reminder that the public must become more discerning and better at vetting sources to maintain its grip on reality.
According to NBC News, the fake image, which was possibly AI generated, showed plumes of smoke near a building complex “with only a passing resemblance to the Pentagon.” It’s unclear who exactly was behind the image, but it appeared to originate with a Twitter account that posts conspiracy theories. Subsequently, the image, along with text claiming that it depicted an explosion near the Pentagon, was picked up by dozens of Twitter accounts with with large number of followers and verified blue check badges. Most notably, a verified account called “Bloomberg Feed” tweeted it out, which many users likely believed represented the widely respected Bloomberg News service.
Nothing of enormous consequence happened after this specific incident, but the way it unfolded provides a small glimpse of how bad things could get.
Personally, I saw a few influential journalists quote tweet the image asking about the incident, likely giving it credibility even as those journalists weren’t sure of its accuracy. Thanks to changes made by new Twitter CEO Elon Musk, a blue check badge no longer authenticates the user’s identity, making it easier to dupe large numbers of people with the trappings of legitimacy left over from the old verification system. The hoax was spreading so quickly that the Department of Defense’s Pentagon Force Protection Agency and the Arlington County Fire Department released a joint statement saying, “There is NO explosion or incident taking…
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