Does a real photo show someone dressed as Spider-Man punching Jake Lang at a protest in Minneapolis? No, that's not true: This specific image is AI-generated, although a person dressed as Spider-Man was filmed attacking Lang and later both were arrested. The OpenAI Verify tool found a SynthID watermark in the image indicating it was made with OpenAI tools.
The image appeared in a post (archived here) by the @joshforprogress account on X on Aug. 24, 2026. It was captioned:
Spiderman punching a Nazi. 🇺🇸🫡
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @joshforprogress on X.)
There was a planned demonstration and counter-protest at the Minneapolis City Hall which turned violent. An Aug. 22, 2026, bulletin (archived here) from the Minneapolis Police Department named the eleven people who were arrested. The list of those arrested included Jake Lang and William Nicholas Love. Newsweek reported that the Minneapolis Police Department confirmed that Love was wearing a Spider-Man costume (archived here).
Lead Stories uploaded the image to Hive Moderation and the Content Detection Tool determined it was 88.4% likely to contain AI-generated content (archived here).
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
Lead Stories uploaded the image to the Verify tool from OpenAI (archived here). The findings (pictured below) read in part:
This content was generated using OpenAI tools. The signals below provide supporting evidence for this result.
SynthID detectedWe found a SynthID watermark that originated from OpenAI.
(Image source: OpenAI.)
Footage of the incident (archived here) was posted to TikTok by @reportermark on Aug. 22, 2026 (embedded below). It shows several punches were thrown, none of them landing as depicted in the AI-generated image.
@reportermark Spider-Man fights white supremacist Jake Lang in Minneapolis. 8/22/26. #minnesota#minneapolis♬ Holding Out for a Hero - yourmusic4ever💯
