Fact Check: Students protest against TN CM with ‘Get Out Stalin’ poster? No, image is AI-generated
An image of school students protesting against Tamil Nadu CM Stalin with a banner saying ‘#GetOutStalin’ is going viral on social media.
By K Sherly Sharon Published on 28 Feb 2025 6:09 PM IST
Claim: The image shows school students protesting against Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin, holding posters that say, 'Get Out Stalin.'
Fact: The claim is false. The image is generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Hyderabad: Delimitation and language imposition have become contentious issues between the Union government and the governments of Southern States. In this context, an image showing girls in school uniforms protesting against Tamil Nadu chief minister Stalin is going viral.
In the viral image, the students are seen holding a banner saying, “All Indians are brothers and sisters. Stop North vs South Divide. #GetOutStalin.”
Sharing the image on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), a user wrote, “Repost and Comment if you agree with these Kids… #GetOutStalin” (Archive)
According to a report by The News Minute, dated February 21, 2025, “The social media war erupted after Tamil Nadu’s Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanding the Union government release Tamil Nadu’s share of funds.”
The report stated that Udhayanidhi warned that if the funds were not released, the DMK would escalate its rhetoric from ‘Go Back Modi’ to ‘Get Out Modi.’ In response, #GetOutModi began trending on social media. This prompted BJP state chief K Annamalai to counter with a challenge of his own, initiating the #GetOutStalin campaign. We can see that the viral image also uses the same hashtag on the banner.
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The image is generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
A keyword search did not yield any information regarding a protest by school students against Tamil Nadu CM Stalin. We have found that there are no relevant visual matches for the viral image on any news reports or social media posts.
Upon closer inspection of the image, we found that the image has visual inconsistencies commonly found in AI-generated images. The image has clothing inconsistencies, unusual hair and facial features and abnormal finger sizes and counts.
Some of the unusual details in the viral image can be seen below.
In the bottom right corner of the image, we have observed the watermark ‘GROK’. Grok Image Generator is a generative AI tool designed to create art and visuals from text inputs. Its official website states that it is specifically built for artistic creations.
Using Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool, we found that the image is 96 per cent likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content.
Another AI detection tool, Sight Engine, confirmed that the image is 99 per cent likely to have been AI-generated.
Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false, as the image is AI-generated.
