White House’s Use of Altered Images Raises Concerns Over Trust and Misinformation

The Trump administration has drawn criticism for sharing doctored imagery on official White House channels, most recently featuring civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong depicted in tears following her arrest. The incident represents an escalation in the White House’s embrace of AI-enhanced visuals that has alarmed misinformation experts.

The controversy began when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s account posted an unedited arrest image of Levy Armstrong. Shortly after, the official White House account shared an altered version showing her crying—a manipulation that wasn’t labeled as such. This doctored image is part of a growing trend of AI-edited visuals being shared in political contexts, particularly since the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by U.S. Border Patrol in Minneapolis.

When faced with criticism about the altered image, White House officials didn’t back down. Deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr declared on X that the “memes will continue,” while Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson shared a post mocking the criticism.

“Calling the altered image a meme certainly seems like an attempt to cast it as a joke or humorous post, like their prior cartoons,” said David Rand, professor of information science at Cornell University. “This presumably aims to shield them from criticism for posting manipulated media.” Rand added that the purpose of sharing this particular altered image seems “much more ambiguous” than previous cartoonish images circulated by the administration.

The strategic value of such content is clear to political communication professionals. “People who are terminally online will see it and instantly recognize it as a meme,” explained Zach Henry, a Republican communications consultant who founded influencer marketing firm Total Virality. “Your grandparents may see it and not understand the meme, but because it looks real, it leads them to ask their kids or grandkids about it.”

This approach seems designed to provoke reactions that help content go viral. Henry, who generally praised the White House social media team’s work, noted that controversy often increases visibility.

Media literacy experts, however, are deeply troubled by government entities participating in visual misinformation. “The creation and dissemination of altered images, especially when they are shared by credible sources, crystallizes an idea of what’s happening, instead of showing what is actually happening,” said Michael A. Spikes, professor at Northwestern University and news media literacy researcher.

“The government should be a place where you can trust the information, where you can say it’s accurate, because they have a responsibility to do so,” Spikes added. “By sharing this kind of content, and creating this kind of content… it is eroding the trust we should have in our federal government to give us accurate, verified information.”

The implications extend beyond this single incident. An influx of AI-generated videos related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, protests, and citizen interactions has proliferated across social media. After Renee Good was shot by an ICE officer while in her car, several fabricated videos began circulating showing women driving away from ICE officers. Other synthetic videos show immigration raids or people confronting ICE officers.

Jeremy Carrasco, a content creator specializing in media literacy and debunking viral AI videos, believes most of these videos come from accounts “engagement farming”—capitalizing on clicks using popular keywords like “ICE.” He warns that most viewers can’t distinguish between real and fake content, even when there are obvious signs of AI generation such as gibberish street signs.

“It’s going to be an issue forever now,” Carrasco said. “I don’t think people understand how bad this is.”

The problem extends to international news as well. Following the capture of deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, fabricated and misrepresented images flooded online platforms.

Ramesh Srinivasan, a professor at UCLA, emphasized that many people already struggle to find “trustable information” sources. “AI systems are only going to exacerbate, amplify and accelerate these problems of an absence of trust, an absence of even understanding what might be considered reality or truth or evidence,” he said.

Potential solutions may include watermarking systems that embed information about media origins into metadata. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity has developed such a system, but widespread adoption remains at least a year away, according to Carrasco.

As AI-generated political content becomes more commonplace, the boundaries between fact and fiction continue to blur, creating what experts describe as a crisis of trust in information across society.