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Toronto Sun
2 days ago
- General
- Toronto Sun
Holocaust AI fakes spark alarm
Published Jul 14, 2025 • 4 minute read AI-generated content about the Holocaust has sparked alarm. Photo by Justin TALLIS / AFP London (AFP) — The Facebook post shows a photo of a pretty curly-haired girl on a tricycle and says she is Hannelore Kaufmann, 13-year-old from Berlin who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. 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Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account But there is no such Holocaust victim and the photo is not real, but generated by AI. Content creators, often based in South Asia, are churning out such posts for money, targeting Westerners' emotional reactions to the Holocaust, in which six million Jewish people died, researchers told AFP. Critics say that such AI-generated images, text and videos are offensive and contribute to Holocaust distortion by conjuring up a 'fantasy-land Auschwitz'. The Auschwitz museum sounded the alarm over the trend. 'We're dealing with the creation of a false reality — because it is falsifying images… falsifying history,' museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki told AFP. The museum at the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration and extermination camp, where one million Jews were murdered in Nazi-occupied Poland, first noticed the posts in May, Sawicki said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Some reproduced the museum's posts about victims but changed the images using AI, without flagging this. 'You can see the photo is based on the original but it's completely changed', Sawicki said. A recent post about a Polish man was recreated with an 'outrageous' AI image of an Asian man, he added. In others, 'both the photo and the story are fabricated'' Sawicki said, portraying 'people who never existed'. A girl with a flower in her hair is named as Yvette Kahn who died in Auschwitz. No such victim appears in databases of the victims. In other cases, details do not match. A girl called Hanni Lore or Hannelore Kaufmann lived in western Germany — not Berlin — and died in Sobibor camp — not Auschwitz, according to Israel's Yad Vashem remembrance centre. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Posts add emotive elements such as Kaufmann loving her tricycle. But the Auschwitz museum spokesman stressed: 'We generally don't have information about these people's lives.' Complaints to Facebook owner Meta have not resulted in action, Sawicki said. 'Unfortunately, it seems that from the perspective of the platform, this doesn't violate rules or regulations.' Facebook permits photo-realistic generative AI content but says it should be labelled, researchers said. Meta did not respond to AFP's request for comment. AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook's fact checking programme, in which Facebook pays to use fact checks from around 80 organizations globally on its platform, WhatsApp and Instagram. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The Holocaust trend was fuelled by Facebook's content-monetisation feature, researchers said. 'They create these images that trigger people to like or comment and they earn money from that,' Martin Degeling, a researcher for AI Forensics non-profit, told AFP. To elicit 'emotional responses, you have to constantly switch topics' and the Holocaust seems to be the latest, Degeling said. At least a dozen Facebook pages and groups post such content, many with administrators in developing economies such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In Europe or the United States, monetisation from such posts 'wouldn't be a sustainable income' but in poorer countries 'you can live off that', Degeling said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Holocaust posts often appear on pages previously run by US or British organisations. 'It's more lucrative to target high-income countries' via hacked or dormant accounts, Degeling said. One page is still named after The Two Pennies pub in North Shields, northeastern England. Clare Daley, who manages the pub's social media, told AFP its account was hacked but Meta took no action. 'It has been a huge shame, as we have years of posts and followers on there,' she said. Now managed in Sri Lanka, the page has 23,000 followers. 'Incredibly offensive' Fake portraits of Holocaust victims particularly upset victims' families. 'When I see that they post these images, it almost seems like it's mocking … like we could just artificially recreate that loss,' said Shaina Brander, a 31-year-old working in finance in New York. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Her 100-year-old grandmother, Chajka Brander, lost all her family in the Holocaust and camp guards took away her photographs. Her father was shot in front of her and 'she doesn't remember what he looks like', Brander said. 'You can't make an AI photo to bring that image back to her.' Holocaust educator Sofia Thornblad posts on TikTok about AI-generated videos simulating the Holocaust, which she calls 'incredibly offensive'. The chief curator at Tulsa's Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art cited one called: 'Asked AI to show me what it was like as a prisoner of Auschwitz'. Liked over 74,000 times, it shows rosy-faced prisoners and quite comfy bunkbeds. TikTok labels this 'sensitive content' with an option to 'learn the facts about the Holocaust'. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'We have pictures of what liberation of concentration camps looks like and it's absolutely horrific,' Thornblad, 31, told AFP. The AI video looks 'almost neutral', she said. 'It's like fantasy-land Auschwitz.' For Mykola Makhortykh, who researches the impact of AI on Holocaust memory, 'we should be extremely concerned'. Chatbots are 'particularly worrisome' for historical information, the University of Bern lecturer told AFP. 'Sometimes we even have them inventing, essentially, fake historical witnesses and fake historical evidence.' They can 'hallucinate' non-existent events — such as mass drowning of Jews, he said. AI providers must use better information sources, he said but Holocaust museums also 'need to adapt'. Some already use AI to preserve survivors' memories. The UK's National Holocaust Centre and Museum interviewed 11 survivors for its 'Forever Project'. Thanks to AI, visitors can 'talk to' Steven Mendelsson, who came to Britain in the Kindertransport and died recently, museum director Marc Cave told AFP. 'It's a great use, a respectful use, of Steve,' he said. 'Our ethical guideline is: treat the tech as if it were the real person.' Uncategorized Toronto & GTA Editorial Cartoons Golf Columnists
The Star
01-07-2025
- Automotive
- The Star
UK auto tariff cut comes into effect
Photo by Justin TALLIS / AFP LONDON: UK car manufacturers can export to the United States under a 10% tariff, a reduction from the 25% rate imposed by Donald Trump on other countries, as the first elements of an economic agreement between the US president and Prime Minister Keir Starmer come into effect. British aerospace companies like Rolls Royce Holdings plc also saw 10% tariffs on goods, including engines and aircraft parts, slashed to zero yesterday. However, there still remained no sign of progress towards lowering levies on the UK's beleaguered steel industry, which remain at 25% despite Britain previously announcing an agreement to reduce them to zero. 'From today, our world-class automotive and aerospace industries will see tariffs slashed,' Starmer said. — Bloomberg
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Meta blocks access to Muslim news page in India
A Muslim news page was banned on Instagram in India following the worst violence between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan in two decades (Justin TALLIS) (Justin TALLIS/AFP/AFP) Meta has banned a prominent Muslim news page on Instagram in India at the government's request, the account's founder said Wednesday, denouncing the move as "censorship" as hostilities escalate between India and Pakistan. Instagram users in India trying to access posts from the handle @Muslim -- a page with 6.7 million followers -- were met with a message stating: "Account not available in India. This is because we complied with a legal request to restrict this content." There was no immediate reaction from the Indian government on the ban, which comes after access was blocked to the social media accounts of Pakistani actors and cricketers. "I received hundreds of messages, emails and comments from our followers in India, that they cannot access our account," Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh, the news account's founder and editor-in-chief, said in a statement. ADVERTISEMENT "Meta has blocked the @Muslim account by legal request of the Indian government. This is censorship." Meta declined to comment. A spokesman for the tech giant directed AFP to a company webpage outlining its policy for restricting content when governments believe material on its platforms goes "against local law." The development, first reported by the US tech journalist Taylor Lorenz' outlet User Magazine, comes in the wake of the worst violence between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan in two decades. Both countries have exchanged heavy artillery fire along their contested frontier, after New Delhi launched deadly missile strikes on its arch-rival. At least 43 deaths were reported in the fighting, which came two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing a deadly attack on tourists in the Indian-run side of the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir. ADVERTISEMENT Pakistan rejects the charge and has warned it will "avenge" those killed by Indian air strikes. The @Muslim account is among the most followed Muslim news sources on Instagram. Khatahtbeh apologized to followers in India, adding: "When platforms and countries try to silence media, it tells us that we are doing our job in holding those in power accountable." "We will continue to document the truth and stand out firmly for justice," he added, while calling on Meta to reinstate the account in India. India has also banned more than a dozen Pakistani YouTube channels for allegedly spreading "provocative" content, including Pakistani news outlets. In recent days, access to the Instagram account of Pakistan's former prime minister and cricket captain Imran Khan has also been blocked in India. ADVERTISEMENT Pakistani Bollywood movie regulars Fawad Khan and Atif Aslam were also off limits in India, as well as a wide range of cricketers -- including star batters Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan and retired players Shahid Afridi and Wasim Akram. Rising hostilities between the South Asian neighbors have also unleashed an avalanche of online misinformation, with social media users circulating everything from deepfake videos to outdated images from unrelated conflicts, falsely linking them to the Indian strikes. On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump called for India and Pakistan to immediately halt their fighting, and offered to help end the violence. bur-ac/sla
Forbes
24-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
What's Going On With META Stock?
An illustration photograph taken on April 17, shows the Facebook app available to download from the ... More App Store displayed on a phone screen, in a residential property in Guildford, south of London. (Photo by Justin TALLIS / AFP) (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images) Meta Platforms' stock has declined approximately 13% this year, facing headwinds from potential tariff impacts that could affect the company in two significant ways: Despite this year's setback, Meta has demonstrated remarkable resilience over a longer timeframe, with the stock gaining 56% since early 2022, substantially outperforming the broader Nasdaq index's modest 7% increase. This outperformance can be attributed to several key factors: Meta Platforms has delivered impressive revenue growth of 39%, increasing from $118 billion in 2021 to $165 billion in the trailing twelve months. This robust performance stems from multiple growth drivers: Meta's profitability metrics show substantial improvement, with the net income margin expanding from 33.4% in 2021 to 37.9% currently. This enhanced profitability is complemented by a strategic 9% reduction in shares outstanding, made possible by the company's substantial $122 billion investment in share repurchases. The combination of higher revenues, expanded margins, and fewer outstanding shares has resulted in a 73% increase in earnings per share, rising from $13.77 in 2021 to $23.86 in the most recent period. Despite Meta's impressive financial performance across revenue growth, margin expansion, and earnings improvement, its P/E ratio has declined by 10%. This valuation compression can be attributed to several factors: Given these uncertainties, investors should ask themselves critical questions: Do you want to hold on to your META stock now? Will you panic and sell if it starts dropping further? Holding on to a falling stock is never easy. While META remains fundamentally strong with impressive growth and improving profitability, investors seeking to preserve wealth in volatile markets might consider alternative strategies. Trefis works with Empirical Asset Management—a Boston area wealth manager—whose asset allocation strategies yielded positive returns even during the 2008-09 period when the S&P lost more than 40%. Empirical has incorporated the Trefis HQ Portfolio in this asset allocation framework to provide clients better returns with less risk versus the benchmark index; less of a roller-coaster ride, as evident in HQ Portfolio performance metrics..
