Fact Check: Viral image of modified tractors is AI-generated, not from farmers’ protest in Delhi

Hyderabad: After an inconclusive meeting with the Union government about their demands, farmers mainly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh came together to march to Delhi. Soon, chaos unfolded after the police blocked the protesting farmers and fired teargas shells on them at Shambhu, a border crossing between Punjab and Haryana, 230 km north of Delhi.

Apart from their main demand for a legal guarantee of MSP, the farmers have also demanded the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations and farm debt waiver.

The Delhi Police ramped up security measures, imposing restrictions on gatherings and fortifying borders in anticipation of farmers’ protest. In this context, an image is in circulation on social media claiming to show tractors modified by protesting farmers to remove barricades and resist tear gas.

Sharing an image of the alleged modified tractors, an X premium user wrote, “Must find who is funding #FarmerProtest2024 and seize their account. (sic)”

The text layered on the image reads, “Tractors modified to remove barricades, resist tear gas shells will lead Delhi Chalo march by Punjab farmers, intelligence agencies alert police. (sic)”

Right-wing X handle, Megh Updates, caught peddling fake news in the past, also shared the image making the same assertion.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the vehicles in the viral image are AI-generated.

Since the viral image credited news agency ANI as its source, we ran a keyword search for the report using the keywords ‘modified tractors,’ which directed us to a report by the news agency ANI, titled ‘Modified tractors to lead farmers’ protest march, intelligence agencies alert police’.

However, the ANI report carried an image that looked different from the viral image.

According to the report, central agencies had alerted Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi police that modified tractors would lead the farmers’ protest. The officials have alerted that tractors have been fitted with hydraulic tools to remove barricades and fire-resistant hardshell trailers to fight tear gas shells.

We also found reports about the use of modified tractors by protesting farmers published by news outlets Money Control, Business Standard, and The Economic Times. However, none of them carried the viral image. We found the viral image in a syndicated report of ANI published by right-wing website OpIndia. In the caption, the report mentioned that the image has been generated using AI (Artificial Intelligence) and has been used as a ‘representative image.’

Analysis of the image

We analysed the image minutely and found several discrepancies which are common among AI-generated images. The first vehicle in the image has two exhaust pipes while the second has one complete exhaust pipe and one incomplete one. The third and fourth vehicles do not have exhaust pipes. Also, one of the cars on the away side of the road seemed to be on the divider while others were being driven on the right side, contrary to Indian roads where vehicles go on the left side. Some of them appear to be distorted or unclear.

Finally, we ran the image through Hive Moderator, an AI-generated content detection tool, which detected that the image was 99.9 per cent likely to be AI-generated.

Hence, we conclude that the image of the alleged modified tractor is AI-generated.