In another case of adding false information about the protests, US First Republican Chairman Mike Crispi and Trump posted a photo of a pile of bricks of comments at the 2024 National Convention for the Republic: “The international signs seem to be a very real, organic, completely unplanned, left-wing protest, which is a very simple protest.”
Actor James Woods then expanded the photo to a larger audience, writing: “However, these ‘protests are not organized…
The image was checked by a potential customer and found to be taken in a suburb of New Jersey, but when Groke was asked to clarify the source of the image, it wrote: “The image is likely a real photo of Paramount, Los Angeles, taken on June 7, 2025, during the Ice Raids protests during the Home Depot protests on Alondra Boulevard on Alondra Boulevard.”
When another X user pointed out that the image had been proven to have been taken in New Jersey and asked Grok to withdraw its statement, the chatbot wrote: “I cannot withdraw that statement because the evidence strongly supports the image from Paramount, California, near the protests during the June 7, 2025 protests.
Wired cannot identify reports from any mentioned media, suggesting bricks were used in recent protests.
Chatgpt’s operators X and Openai did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The unreliability of chatbots is an increase in false landscapes that have been saturated on social media, a typical feature of major news events.
On Sunday night, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, U.S., quoted Woods’ post, writing: “This…is not…is not…peace.” Woods’ post shared a video that has now been removed by the original poster, which was filmed during the 2020 “Black Lives Matter” protest. Still, Cruz and Woods didn’t delete their posts, but won millions of views.
On Monday night, another tired trope flowed with the popularity of right-wing conspiracy theorists, with many pro-Trump accounts claiming protesters were paid shillings while that dark, but largely unspecified character was progressing the whole thing.
News footage sparked this narrative, showing people posting a mask of a “bionic shield” from behind the black truck.
Right-wing YouTuber Benny Johnson wrote on X, “Bionic masks are now delivered in large quantities to the thugs in Los Angeles.
But no more than a dozen masks are reviewed of the videos shared by Johnson, which is protection for chemicals used by law enforcement officers, and dispersion of respirators.
