Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Hull East has issued an apology after sharing a misleading photograph of Rishi Sunak at a beer festival.
The photograph showed the Prime Minister handing over a badly poured pint as a member of staff looks at him in disbelief. However, it was doctored from an official image shared on Number 10’s Flickr account.
Turner said he was sorry for “inadvertently sharing an image which apparently turns out to have been fake.”
Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan stated:
“In the era of deepfakes and digitally distorted images, it’s even more important to be able to have reliable sources of information you can trust.
“No elected member of parliament should be misleading the public with fake images.”
Turner’s Labour colleague and Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, Darren Jones, defended him, while also stating that more work needed to be done with tech companies to look at AI and deep fakes.
Social media platform, X, has now added a note to the photo to state how the photograph was altered, with links to the original.
Turner’s original post has been seen over 700k times.
While this was a doctored photo, technology and AI is making deepfake videos more prevalent.
Earlier this year MoneySavingExpert, Martin Lewis issued a warning after a video appeared to show him endorsing a fake investment project from Elon Musk.
