this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2026
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nothing is out of the ordinary, citizen (anarchaos.s3.eu-central-003.backblazeb2.com)
submitted 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) by Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus to c/pics@lemmy.world
 
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[–] apparia@discuss.tchncs.de 61 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

I was gonna say it on the last thread but, before we start appropriating this image as a political symbol as you've done here, should someone... maybe... source it slightly better than "Reddit"? There's plenty of evidence that the school was blown up, but this specific image -- conveniently well-framed and poignant -- cropped up very quickly on a few random social media accounts, with no photographer attributed, and as far as I know hasn't actually been verified at all.

[–] Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 15 hours ago (2 children)
[–] apparia@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

Nice find, kind of damning. That version has a totally different wall on the right side to the version posted here, it also seems to be from a slightly different angle. This screams AI manipulation -- if not outright fabrication -- of at least one of those images. Doesn't necessarily mean they're both fake, but a pretty big red flag.

Comparison

[–] Iconoclast@feddit.uk 8 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

That comparison looks like it's just picture of the same subject taken with two different cameras from sligthly different angle. I'm somewhat experienced in photography, picture editing and playing with GenAI and nothing immediately stands out as being fake/manipulated. Doesn't mean it's can't be ofcourse. That one few comments down with blood on the ground is fake though.

[–] apparia@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

It's the wall on the right -- in the wide version (from felesteen.news) it's all the same blue colour, and a corner, whereas in the Reddit version it's a white concrete pillar with no corner.

At the very least, someone's done some infilling on one of them. My most charitable guess was that someone at the news site decided to "punch up" the image for an article header, but the third version and its timing make me think Occam's razor is the way to go here.

[–] Iconoclast@feddit.uk 6 points 6 hours ago

Oh yeah, good point - I don't know how I missed that. I was focusing on the cracks on the wall and the placement of pebbles on the ground. Yeah that's not just overexposure from sunshine making it seem different color.

[–] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 4 points 6 hours ago

It's odd because the trash in the corner on the left is consistent, and the blood pattern is the same, and even the cracks on the wall behind them are the same, but the pillar shifts location and color.

It seems to me like there was a reference image. Whether it's the AI plagiarizing something it was trained on, or an actual image that was thrown through a processing pipeline with AI.

But of course, the most charitable guess is as always that it's deliberate Mossad misinformation, because we just spent a couple hundred collective hours analyzing an image rather than burning down an embassy because they did actually murder children.

[–] flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

What are you talking about, the concrete is different between them, and the paint on the wall too.

Did someone pour more concrete between the shots and paint the vertical white line on the wall?

[–] zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Good catch! There are multiple manipulated versions, so currently I doubt there is an original photograph. Here the version, where you can see extra blood markings on the ground:


Source

[–] apparia@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 8 hours ago

Your version was posted within 3 minutes of this post someone linked in the comments of the Reddit version. So yeah, all credibility lost as far as I'm concerned.

What I don't get is why, if this is some sort of coordinated campaign, you wouldn't just generate entirely new images, rather than AI-daydream variants of the exact same one, which makes it obvious they're manipulated.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago

A quick google translate

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 14 points 16 hours ago

Good instinct to pump the brakes a bit.

I couldn't find the source for this exact photo, but Aljazeera reports of plenty of bloody backpacks. So...

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 7 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

School blown up?

This is the first I've seen, and it looks like a black square Photoshopped to cover up the kerb near a door? What's this about a school being blown up?

I'll be honest, I thought it was someone humorously censoring one of those fairy doors, pretending it's a government cover-up of the supernatural.

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 15 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

We’re experiencing a bit of fediverse drama. https://infosec.pub/post/42793922

This is ostensibly a photo of a bloody backpack taken at an Iranian school that was bombed this weekend by the US and Israel, killing dozens of children. It’s abhorrent and unforgivable.

A post with this photo was removed from a major fediverse picture community, but a clear reason possibly wasn’t given.

One possible issue is that this image has not been verified and has shown up in several places in ways that have clearly been manipulated by AI. This makes it’s authenticity as a real photograph questionable.

The events themselves are horrific, and some argument has been made about the image potentially being “political” — which is a disgusting argument almost always used to oppress and suppress the unprivileged. The prior argument would be reasonable, but calling inconvenient and uncomfortable injustices “political” is a behavior that needs to end.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 points 4 hours ago

Oh wow, thanks for that info. I knew LW was uncomfortably liberal but that top comment is very concerning if true.

The removal, if I'm understanding the story correctly, seems justifiable enough on its own (untagged nsfl), but it does seem part of a pattern of borderline decisions all going one particular way…

(If it was removed for being "political", as some others said, that's inexcusable.)

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 8 points 12 hours ago

USA-Israel bombed a girls school

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 16 points 15 hours ago

There's a bloody backpack behind the square. It was a little girl's just that morning. Now it lays there motionless.

[–] Dearth@lemmy.world 6 points 16 hours ago

The photographer was likely a neighbor with a smartphone and enough interest in amateur photography to learn about composition