So it's GUIMP? I thought it was "GNU Image Manipulation Program."
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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The US government and everyone that stands behind it, they want to make those who fight against ICE look like dangerous creatures that roam the Earth and must be stopped. They want to look like they're in total control, by making these fighters look desperate for their lives when they are arrested, by celebrating whenever one of them is killed. But most importantly, they want us to fight each other, so that we forget who is our true opponent on what is basically a war on our rights as human beings.
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, obviously it's a bad thing in the short term. I'm sure the current administration will continue to lie in more egregious ways. For example, if there were no clear bystander videos, would the DHS be releasing doctored bodycam footage to show Alex Pretti pulling his gun and trying to shoot ICE officers? Does that sound far-fetched? It's technically feasible. It might seem too big and blatant a lie, but that lie has already been told in words from the DHS and Trump administration. Why not embellish it further?
And of course it's enormously dangerous because no matter how blatant the lies are, there are many people who will accept them at face value, because they are too uneducated, or too locked into the "us and them" mentality to ever doubt the story that their team is selling.
So how could it be a good thing? Well, if the USA manages to rid itself of this cancer, the Trump administration will serve as irrefutable proof that government institutions cannot be considered intrinsically trustworthy, or relied on to act in good faith. There needs to be checks and balances like never before. That was always true, but knowing it and being able to act on it are two different things. The Trump administration's eagerness to lie, cheat and cause suffering, even in the most clumsy and blatant ways, shines a clear light on dangers that were already there. It is an exemplary model of the abuse of power, and I hope that one day we will be in a position to take lessons from it. Maybe I'm being overoptimistic. It seems like the lessons learned from Nazi Germany were mostly the "how to do this" kind. But there is a chance to make things better here, not just better than they are now but better than they were before.
So how could it be a good thing? Well, if the USA manages to rid itself of this cancer, the Trump administration will serve as irrefutable proof that government institutions cannot be considered intrinsically trustworthy, or relied on to act in good faith.
This only works if the population is wanting to sustain it. Previous horrible presidencies has shown us that they will sweep it all under the rug and move on to the next bad thing.
Previous presidencies have indeed done that, but that's why this particular situation gives me a glimmer of hope. The rot is at the point where it all needs to be ripped out. All branches of government are loaded with MAGA appointees, the supreme court is politicized and disgraced, the whole Republican party is complicit in crimes against the nation. Business as usual just isn't an option any more. I'm not saying that things are automatically going to get better, and unless there is a major cleanout of the Democratic party, it's doubtful that they would. Just saying that there is a chance now that didn't exist before.
I have absolutely no doubt that if there were no external videos we would all be seeing pictures and videos of Alex Pretti brandishing, and most probably shooting a gun. No doubt whatsoever.
I wouldn't put it past the orange child rapist and cronies to make up a complete back story about Alex being "involved with domestic terrorists" etc etc.
They will do absolutely anything to stay in power.
The real question is:
If they did AI up some pics and videos then would anyone with clout pull them up on it?
Again, I doubt it.
I’m getting a lot of miles out of Orwell these days.
This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs -- to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.
- 1984
Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date
The record was corrected?
Yes, it was corrected to what the party wanted it to have been. It really is a good book, you should give it at least a once over.
You should actually read the book, or at least that part of the chapter.
Edit: you can read the context, and the entirety of the book, for free here or at Project Gutenberg.
My partner was fake edited in one of the DHS videos in Portland! He was wearing a moth man costume and dancing to EDM at the ICE center and they put fake smoke and filters over it to make him look scary lol.... Absolutely ridiculous. 
FYI, HE WAS SURROUNDED BY OTHER COSTUMES DANCING! This was peak frog erra.
Here is what he ACTUALLY looked like lol
Omg you have to warn us before posting scary leftists
“The Radical Left^tm^ are allied with the “Mothman,” known infamously for being behind the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers and the Oklahoma City bombing, among others. Make America Safe Again. Join ICE today, or perish tomorrow!”
Would you like to know more?
I would frame that as a token of honor! How weak of them lol
What's new?
Non-AI (but not primary) source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union
“It’s just a meme,” has the same energy as a confronted schoolyard bully, and apparently that’s just accepted etiquette now :/
Ive seen the same sentiment on Lemmy. Manipulative/misleading articles or even straight up misinformation is posted, and when I bring it up, OP’s response is “I don’t care.” As long as it’s the right ideology, it’s alright; and mods didn’t disagree.
…We’re so screwed, aren’t we? And by “we” I mean the internet. It’s nice to think of the Fediverse an oasis from all this, but it engineered in the same structural issues commercial social media has, I think.
The horrible truth is many of the people who have the right opinion got there in the same stupid flawed ways as people who have the wrong opinion, and are deep down no better, but just accidentally appear to be so. These people just want what they want, they don't care if it makes sense, they don't care about validating their beliefs against reality or having logical arguments for their beliefs. They don't want to be know truth, they want what they already believe to be truth.
„It‘s just a meme“ was proven false when Americans voted Trump for the first time „as a meme“. Yes, I remember many of them claiming they did that ironically the first time. Of course that was a lie and they stopped pretending to be just useful idiots the second time around. They‘re simply nasty people.
It’s ok, I never trusted any audio/video/images from this administration in the first place.
You sure? That AI video Trump made where he shat on the American public seemed convincing enough…
That was real video but they cut out the diaper he was emptying.
Or the one with him and some soccer asshole freestyling a soccer ball in the oval office. Guy can barely walk down a ramp and he's shitposting hackysack kicking a soccer ball.
We know
Welcome to the 20th Century.
This is the main reason AI is being pushed into everything.
Main reason is money. They found a hype inducing thing and circle hyped it. Nvidia especially.
This is just a side-effect. A nasty one.
Disclaimer: "AI" is not completely useless.
its useful for propaganda, because googles video AI is very hard to tell unless you have been exposed to ai videos for a while. and Right wingers are less likely to tell apart propaganda AI and real news.
And for the surveillance and defense contracts.
palinitir used to "look for targets, biased" to monitor or kill.
You should always assume that if a way to lie to you exists, politicians and marketing will use it to lie to you. I don't understand why people give them chance after chance to find a lie that works by exposing their eyes and ears to those attempts. You realize they would be content to enslave you, right? We didn't 'solve' slavery for all time, just until they figure out how to enslave us again.
I automatically think anything coming from this administration is propaganda bull shit taken from the horror version of Idiocracy.
Since when have they been not using image manipulation for propaganda?
Sure it's way easier now, but it's not like manipulating images is a new tactic.
Who could have seen this coming.
Beware: water is wet
I would expect breaking "phone gets an update pushed out like an Amber Alert" news if anyone in the administration told the truth
I'm godsmacked, I tell ya whhat