News/Commentary

Trump supporters accused of targeting black voters with fake AI images: ‘MSM panic is palpable’

March 4, 2024 | | Print Article

A scandal involving Donald Trump, a radio host, Black Voters Matter, and artificial intelligence (AI) is brewing on social media.

It started when Mark Kaye, a conservative radio host in Florida, created an AI-generated image of the former president smiling at a party, his arms draped around a group of black women, and posted it to Facebook, where he boasts more than a million followers.

“He had posted an article about black voters supporting Mr Trump and attached this image to it, giving the impression that these people all support the former president’s run for the White House,” the BBC reports.

The image, along with “dozens of deepfakes portraying black people as supporting” Trump, has been shared by the GOP frontrunner’s supporter on social media, BBC Panorama found.

Though the BBC notes that “there’s no evidence directly linking these images to Mr Trump’s campaign,” Black Voters Matter co-founder Cliff Albright claimed they are consistent with a “very strategic narrative” crafted by conservatives to target young black voters with “disinformation.”

“There have been documented attempts to target disinformation to black communities again, especially younger black voters,” Albright told the BBC.

For context, Albright’s Black Voters Matter Fund aims to “increase voter registration within the Black community; oppose laws designed to minimize voter fraud, such as voter identification laws; and advocate for legislation that would restore the right to vote for convicted felons,” according to Influence Watch. “Additionally, the fund also makes expenditures in support of ideologically aligned political candidates.”

Not surprisingly, the fund backs President Biden.

“On August 12, 2020, the fund’s cofounders, LaTosha Brown and Clifford Albright congratulated Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) on her selection to be former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate in the 2020 presidential election,” Influence Watch reports. “In connection with Juneteenth 2022, a commemoration of the emancipation of slaves following the Civil War made a federal holiday by President Joe Biden in 2021, the fund is promoting and sponsoring policy-oriented rallies that will take place on that day, such as the ‘Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly & Moral March on Washington’ in Washington, D.C.”

And the Spooky Dude himself backs Black Voters Matter.

“The Black Voters Matter Fund is one of several groups that has received grant money from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations as part of its $150 million racial justice initiative announced on July 13, 2020,” according to Influence Watch.

Kaye, meanwhile, told the BBC that voters really shouldn’t be basing their decisions on an image posted on Facebook.

“I’m not claiming it is accurate. I’m not saying, ‘Hey, look, Donald Trump was at this party with all of these African American voters. Look how much they love him!'” Kaye said. “If anybody’s voting one way or another because of one photo they see on a Facebook page, that’s a problem with that person, not with the post itself.”

On X, Kaye dismissed the article with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

“Guys! The Fake News [BBC] has accused me of leading a ‘disinformation’ campaign,” he wrote. “Oh, the irony. That’s like me calling them ‘bald!'”

But that wasn’t the only image BBC Pandora found.

“Another widely viewed AI image the BBC investigation found shows Mr Trump posing with black voters on a front porch,” the BBC reports. “It had originally been posted by a satirical account that generates images of the former president, but only gained widespread attention when it was reposted with a new caption falsely claiming that he had stopped his motorcade to meet these people.”

“We tracked down the person behind the account called Shaggy, who is a committed Trump supporter living in Michigan,” Marianna Spring writes for the BBC. “…When I tried to question him on the AI-generated image he blocked me.”

The frenzy over the fake photos comes as Biden’s popularity with black voters has been declining, in multiple polls in recent months.

As BizPac Review reported, MSNBC recently interviewed a group of black male voters in a South Carolina barbershop.

The group of voters emphasized Trump’s status as a businessman and compared his economic track record as president to Biden’s as well as indicating their preference for Trump’s personality.

“Donald Trump, in spite of all the craziness he may have in his head, reading some of the things that he talks about with business, I can kind of agree with as far as business-wise,” a voter named Thomas Murray said. “I’m trying to grow my business. As far as Biden, I haven’t seen Biden really care about business like that. And my concern is having my business so that I can build generational wealth, so my kids can see and have something to take upon when I’m not here.”

Even the BBC acknowledged Biden’s slipping numbers among black voters.

“A recent New York Times and Sienna College poll found that in six key swing states 71% of black voters would back Mr Biden in 2024, a steep drop from the 92% nationally that helped him win the White House at the last election,” it reports.

On X, the BBC’s article smells to a lot of users like a wrap-up smear. Various outlets and anti-Trump users have picked up and shared the story, suggesting — some, subtly; some, not-so-much — that there is a conspiracy afoot.

The Daily Mail, for example, wrote: “A shocking new report from the BBC’s Panorama sees at one least prominent Trump supporter, Florida-based radio host Mark Kaye, admit to creating the fake image.”

On X, the narrative is being amplified:


Some users, however, saw through the brightly lit gas.

“[A]ctually you are first person I’ve seen posting them,” one user told rabid anti-Trumper Mike Sington. “Trump already has outsized support from black voters, this is you posting fake images to attempt to make him look bad.”

“The MSM panic is palpable at this stage,” noted one user. “They can’t accept Trump is winning new black voters.”

Melissa Fine
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