Did a blonde woman take a selfie showing a handcuffed Nicolás Maduro in the back seat of a car? No, that's not true: This is not a real photo. Google's Gemini detected a SynthID watermark embedded in the image indicating that all or part of it was created or edited with Google AI.
The AI-generated image appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by @Partisangirl on Jan. 4, 2026. It was captioned:
The United States deep state is not just a clown show it's the whole circus.
This is the image included in the post:
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from x.com/Partisangirl/status/2007991934569304241.)
Lead Stories queried Google's AI Gemini, asking, "Is this a real photo?" (screenshot below) The Analysis and SynthID queries were marked successful. The response read:
Based on an analysis of the image and the current context, this is not a real photo.
Testing with SynthiD-a tool that detects digital watermarks on AI-generated content-indicates that all or part of this image was created or edited with Google AI.
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from google.com/search.)
Additionally, the AI-generated content detector at Hive Moderation found with 93.3 percent confidence the image was likely to be AI-generated (pictured below). It specified that Google's Gemini3 was the AI model which made the image.
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from x.com/Partisangirl/status/2007991934569304241 with Hive extension.)
