Does a real photo show Australian politician Jacinta Allan with LGBTQ+ and Islamic country flags behind her? No, that's not true: It appears that another image was edited -- possibly using AI -- to create the photo of Allan with the flags in question. There is no reliable evidence to support the claim that Victoria's premier ever stood in front of that particular array of flags.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @JimThom90458694 account on X on March 30, 2026. It read:
She has really lost it
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @JimThom90458694 on X.com.)
A reverse image search (archived here) on Google Images traced the photo to a post and image (archived here) by journalist Heidi Murphy. According to the timestamps, Murphy's post was published approximately 18 hours earlier than the one with the additional flags. This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @heidimur on X.com.)
When the two images are put side by side, the similarities between them are clear, except for the background. The women, their clothing, hand placement, the podium and the microphone stands (circled in yellow) are nearly identical. The edited image has less detail, which is most noticeable in their faces, outfits and the carpeting. But basically, only the flags are different:
(Image sources: posts by @heidimur and @JimThom90458694 on X.com.)
Image analysis
Online AI image detection tools produced mixed results, likely due to the image's hybrid nature -- it contains both authentic and manipulated elements. The University at Buffalo's DeepFake-O-Meter analyzed the image using 14 AI detection models (archived here). Six found high levels of manipulation, three found moderate levels and five found low levels.
