Republican politicians were hoaxed over the weekend by an image purporting to be a downed US warplane crew member rescued by military special forces in Iran on Saturday, igniting a call for a national “crash course in media literacy”.

Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general and a US senate candidate and Mike Lawler, a New York representative, were all caught out for “liking” a fake picture of the airman, who has not been publicly identified.

Donald Trump on Monday afternoon was scheduled to hold a news conference in which he was expected to discuss details of the rescue mission.

The AI-generated image that fooled the Republican politicos was shared by a pro-Trump X account. The supposed airman is shown surrounded by smiling military members, with a US flag draped across his lap.

After Abbott’s error, Billy Binion of the libertarian magazine Reason wrote: “This kind of stuff is bleak. I get that we’re in a new era, but we desperately need a new crash course in media literacy, or just a reminder to be remotely discerning.”

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[–] 75 points 7 months ago

Republicans are fooled by anything.

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  • [–] 42 points 7 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 20 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    "There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again." - George W Bush

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  • [–] 19 points 7 months ago

    We could save ourselves a lot of time writing Headlines by just cutting it off mid sentence.

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  • [–] 26 points 7 months ago

    Came here to post that most of them have already been fooled into being republicans and how that tracks. Looks like y'all got this covered though.

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  • Wag the dog.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago

    There were also a fake image of an American soldier captured by Iranian soldiers, but I guess that one hadn't a lot of track.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    There was a report on NPR today that mentioned the CIA faking a report in order to actually rescue him. I don't know ow for certain of this is what fooled Republicans or not since the article doesn't mention the CIA.

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  • 1 comment in c/theguardian_us@ibbit.at view that post
    [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    they get fooled by this...

    Jessica Foster, by Quentin Tarantino.

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