This round-up of claims has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK’s independent fact checking charity which works to give people access to reliable information they can trust.
AI-generated French protest images circulate online
Footage of protests and unrest in France has flooded social media feeds in recent days – but not everything that’s been shared is genuine, or related to recent events.
France was rocked by major disorder last weekend, with large protests over the cost of living and school conditions alongside scenes of riots and looting – and lots of genuine imagery of different incidents has been circulating online.
But one dramatic image showing people throwing fireworks and waving Palestinian flags at the foot of the Eiffel Tower is not real. OpenAI’s detector told us the image contains an invisible SynthID watermark, indicating it was generated with OpenAI tools. There are some visual inconsistencies too: for example, several people in the background seem to blend into each other and into the smoke.
A viral video that appears to show people hanging large Palestinian and Jordanian flags from the top of the Eiffel Tower is not real either, and we can find no evidence it shows a real event.
When we put the video through Meta’s AI detector it indicated the clip had been created using AI. There are also visual clues that the footage is not real, including sections of the tower not matching up with genuine photos of the landmark and the metal frame appearing to warp and blend into itself when the video pans up.
An image of an elderly couple in their underwear was shared thousands of times online with claims they were stripped and robbed during the riots.
But this picture also is not real and was made with artificial intelligence. Google’s SynthID Detector flagged it as being “made or edited” with AI, and there also appear to be glitches in the image – a masked person on the left of the picture seems to have two heads but only one body. We’ve not seen any official reports confirming such an attack on an elderly couple took place.
Finally, ahead of last weekend’s unrest we saw a video of police using shields and batons during a protest circulating online with captions suggesting the footage shows recent student protests. But that video is old and unrelated to recent events – we found it has actually been online since at least March 2023.
During breaking news events, it can be difficult to differentiate between authentic and fake images, or to know if an image has been shared in the right context. Full Fact’s misinformation toolkit can help you check if an image is real and accurately described before you share it.
Tracking the Government’s triple lock pledge
Last month, Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced plans to change the state pension triple lock mechanism in April 2030, and the Government has said it plans to legislate for this “during this Parliament”.
We are now tracking progress on this pledge via Full Fact’s Government Tracker, which is monitoring the delivery of 95 commitments the Government has made, either in Labour’s 2024 election manifesto or since.
The triple lock was introduced by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2011, and means that each April, the UK’s state pension increases by the highest of three values: 2.5%, CPI inflation or average earnings growth.
But on September 29, in his first conference speech as Prime Minister, Mr Burnham said the Government will “adjust” the triple lock in April 2030.
A Number 10 press release issued after the speech said: “The adjusted triple lock will mean the state pension continues to rise by 2.5% or inflation—whichever is higher—and by even more if that is required to maintain its value relative to earnings.”
Pensions minister Torsten Bell later said the earnings aspect will be calculated as the “amount required to return or maintain value of the state pension relative to 2029/30’s record high as a share of earnings”.
Opposition parties have criticised the planned changes, however, with the Conservatives accusing the Government of “ditching” the triple lock.
Our tracker is currently rating this pledge as “wait and see”, because legislation to adjust the triple lock has not yet been introduced to Parliament.