AN IMAGE THAT appears to show a large crowd of demonstrators waving Union Jack flags along a tree-lined avenue in London has been shared widely, despite clear signs it was generated by artificial intelligence.

The picture has been posted and re-shared on Facebook and X at a time when far-right and anti-immigrant protesters have increasingly deployed the use of flags in a show of nationalist protest.

It has appeared across social media since first being posted by an account that claimed to be from the US on X on 31 August, in a show of solidarity with the wider anti-immigrant movement in the UK.

“Rooting for the patriots over in the UK… Take back your country,” the post read.

It has been viewed almost 2 million times and re-shared more than 16,000 times on X alone to date.

X / @iAnonPatriot X / @iAnonPatriot / @iAnonPatriot

The post coincided with a wider trend in England, where flags bearing the St George’s cross have begun to appear in large numbers on lampposts as part of an ad-hoc campaign by nationalist and anti-immigrant groups.

The cross has also been painted on roundabouts throughout the country as part of the same trend. 

In recent weeks, a similar campaign has cropped up in Ireland, where the tricolour has begun to appear on lampposts in parts of the capital to such an extent that Dublin City Council is considering whether to take action.

The increasing adoption of national flags by anti-migrant groups follows its longer term use during protests against asylum seekers and migrants over the past number of years.

The image in the first post has since been re-shared across social media, including in posts promoting an anti-immigrant protest in London on 13 September, led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

“13th September there will be 1 million people lining the streets of London supporting @TRobinsonNewEra,” the post from 1 September read.

It has also made its way to Facebook, where the image has appeared in posts by conspiracy theorists that suggest it shows a pushback against “the secret nefarious global agenda”.

However, there are several signs that the image is fake – most notably the fact that it did not appear anywhere outside social media before it was first posted on 31 August.

It also does not correlate with anywhere in London; in fact, the tree-lined avenue looks more like the Champs-Élysées in Paris, with a structure that looks like the Arc de Triopmhe in the background.

Other parts of the picture, particularly in the foreground, show the classic signs of AI-generated imagery: indistinct features and separate parts – in this case flags, limbs and faces – bleeding together.

There is nothing to suggest that the image is real or that it represents an event that actually took place – it is simply the latest in a string of AI-generated propaganda images that have appeared on social media.

The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.