(Washington) Manipulated images, photos out of context … Rumors that Donald Trump is seriously ill, even dead, have been circulating in recent days on online networks, despite a public denial of the American president himself.
At a press house press conference Donald Trump, 79, described rumors that appeared after an unusual media diet week.
Since Friday, around 104,000 mentions of the “Trump Dead” keyword (Trump has died) have been noted on the X platform, generating a total of 35.3 million views, according to an analysis carried out by Newsguard, an organization against disinformation.
Some Internet users have published cards supposed to show closed roads near the National Military Military Center Walter Reed, near Washington, as proof that Trump was treated for a serious illness in the establishment.
But no credible information on road closures around the medical center has been reported.
Other Internet users shared an image of an ambulance parked in front of the White House, saying that it had been taken last month and quoted as proof.
In reality, it was an old photo published by an X journalist in April 2023, while Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, was still in office, according to Newsguard.
Some, saying that Trump was dead, shared an image of the White House flag at half mast, a traditional gesture used to honor the death of a leading official. In truth, Trump had ordered last week the sobbeater of the flags in the White House, in military posts and the country’s naval stations, to honor the victims of a shooting in a school in Minneapolis.
Others also posted an enlarged image of Trump’s face, saying that she was showing a deep line above her eye suggesting a recent stroke. But Newsguard discovered that the original image was blurred and showed no sign of line over Trump’s eye. The image had been digitally retouched with an artificial intelligence tool.
Disinformation-which seems to come from anti-Trump accounts on X, Bluesky and Instagram-persisted even after Trump said on his social social network this weekend: “I have never felt so well in my life”. These false information continued to spread after Trump’s press conference on Tuesday, where he publicly rejected rumors on his health.
The health of American presidents has always been closely monitored. During the last presidential campaign, Donald Trump, the oldest of men never elected president of the United States, allegedly alleged that the Democrats had concealed the mental and physical decline of Biden, who was 82 years old when he left his duties in January.
