Have you seen viral images of an "activist" talking to a middle-aged farmer, paired with the caption claiming to describe their dialogue? Lead Stories has spotted a number of such pictures recently and has found that many of them were created using artificial intelligence. They do not show real people or situations.
This article is part of a series of stories examining various types of what is commonly called "AI-slop": images or videos generated with artificial intelligence tools with the aim of going viral, often by exploiting the emotions or curiosity of the viewer with made-up content.
What these 'farmer vs. activist' dialogue posts look like
These posts featured images of two characters, a young adult, frequently a woman, pictured talking to a middle-aged man wearing rustic clothes. The scene was set in a rural landscape.
Such images were frequently shared with what was presented as a transcript of a dialogue between an "activist" and a "farmer". The content of the exchange would typically concern beef and some vaguely defined environmental concerns related to meat consumption.
Some examples
Here is one example (archived here) from X:
(Image source: post by @Bitcoin_Teddy on X.)
Another example (archived here) from the same social media platform featured a different woman, but the man looked nearly identical:
(Image source: post by @Bitcoin_Teddy on X.)
Here is a version of the same story from Facebook (archived here):
In some variations, the supposed dialogue between humans was paired (archived here) with an image of a cow:
(Image source: post by @FamilyFarmersofAmerica on Facebook.)
One account -- @SamaHoole (archived here) -- was particularly active on publishing such posts on X. It was also the account that published one of the earliest variations on January 18, 2026 (archived here).
Keywords
Here are hashtags or keywords often associated with videos like these: activist, farmer, cow(s), cattle, beef, grass, land, carbon, methane, water, rainfall.
How to tell they are false
Images of the alleged dialogue scored close to 100% on the Hive Moderation AI detection tool:
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
In some cases, glitches associated with AI such as illegible inscriptions were present, too:
(Image source: post by @danmurphymusic on X.)
Additionally, the animals in the background appeared a little too uniform. One image only show brown cows with the same white pattern:
(Image source: post by @Bitcoin_Teddy on X.)
In another picture, all animals are black:
(Image source: post by @SamaHoole on X.)
(Image source: Gemini.)
Another tool, GPTZero, ruled that the textual part of such viral posts was AI production, too: 
(Image source: GPTZero.)
(Image source: GPTZero.)
(Image source: GPTZero.)
Lead Stories searched but did not find a post of this genre that would identify the participants of the conversation by name and offer specific verifiable details such as the place and time of the exchange. None of these posts seen by Lead Stories explained how and why the activist and the farmer met and what happened after the exchange.
If you see posts like these on social media, here are some things you can try.
First, look for AI-disclaimers added by the platform or the poster. On TikTok they might say "Contains AI-generated media" or "AI-generated" (archived here), on X they read "Made with AI" (archived here) and on Facebook/Instagram they often say "AI info" (archived here). Check the description of the image, too: In some cases, the creator might have added a note or a hashtag like #AI, #madewithAI or #fiction. Don't forget to check the main page of the account that posted the video either: Maybe there is a disclaimer in the bio and in some cases AI use is really obvious when an account is posting dozens and dozens of variations of the same type of video.
Don't stop at the account that posted the image: Maybe they copied it from somewhere else. Use a tool to take a screenshot of the first frame of the video and run it through a reverse image searching tool to see where else on the internet it appears. It may have originated on an account that posts satire, AI-creations or actual art.
Finally, use common sense: If the image or video shows an event that would otherwise be newsworthy, use a news search engine to check if it has been reported on by a news service you trust. Also pay close attention to the picture itself: look for physical impossibilities or glitches typical of AI-generated footage like:
- People or things appearing (or disappearing) out of thin air
- Objects behaving in physically impossible ways (heavy objects falling slowly, rigid objects bending...)
- Garbled writing, oddly shaped letters or signs
- People or objects blending into or moving through each other
- Inconsistencies between different shots of the video (extra architectural elements in buildings, changing backgrounds, differences in clothing or hairstyle)
- An audio track that sounds strange: flat, unnatural speech, scripted-sounding yelling from bystanders ("Did you see that? OMG!"), sound effects being out of sync with events.
Unsure about an image or a video? Email [email protected] and we will take a look!
These materials were developed in 2026 for the Prebunking at Scale project, with support from the European Fact-Checking Standards Network. If you share this on social media, use #prebunkingatscale.
