#FactCheck - Visuals of Jharkhand Police catching a truck load of cash and gold coins is an AI-generated image
Executive Summary:
An image has been spread on social media about the truck carrying money and gold coins impounded by Jharkhand Police that also during lok sabha elections in 2024. The Research Wing, CyberPeace has verified the image and found it to be generated using artificial intelligence. There are no credible news articles supporting claims about the police having made such a seizure in Jharkhand. The images were checked using AI image detection tools and proved to be AI made. It is advised to share any image or content after verifying its authenticity.
Claims:
The viral social media post depicts a truck intercepted by the Jharkhand Police during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It was claimed that the truck was filled with large amounts of cash and gold coins.
Fact Check:
On receiving the posts, we started with keyword-search to find any relevant news articles related to this post. If such a big incident really happened it would have been covered by most of the media houses. We found no such similar articles. We have closely analysed the image to find any anomalies that are usually found in AI generated images. And found the same.
The texture of the tree in the image is found to be blended. Also, the shadow of the people seems to be odd, which makes it more suspicious and is a common mistake in most of the AI generated images. If we closely look at the right hand of the old man wearing white attire, it is clearly visible that the thumb finger is blended with his apparel.
We then analysed the image in an AI image detection tool named ‘Hive Detector’. Hive Detector found the image to be AI-generated.
To validate the AI fabrication, we checked with another AI image detection tool named ‘ContentAtScale AI detection’ and it detected the image as 82% AI. Generated.
After validation of the viral post using AI detection tools, it is apparent that the claim is misleading and fake.
Conclusion:
The viral image of the truck impounded by Jharkhand Police is found to be fake and misleading. The viral image is found to be AI-generated. There has been no credible source that can support the claim made. Hence, the claim made is false and misleading. The Research Wing, CyberPeace previously debunked such AI-generated images with misleading claims. Netizens must verify such news that circulates in Social Media with bogus claims before sharing it further.
- Claim: The photograph shows a truck intercepted by Jharkhand Police during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which was allegedly loaded with huge amounts of cash and gold coins.
- Claimed on: Facebook, Instagram, X (Formerly known as Twitter)
- Fact Check: Fake & Misleading
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Introduction
One of the biggest gaming populations in the world today is found in India. Every day, hundreds of millions of young Indians engage with streaming services, immersive digital content, mobile games and e-sports ecosystems. Yet, despite this massive scale of participation, India remains largely absent from the global conversation on original gaming intellectual property. Although the nation produces very few globally significant gaming worlds of its own, it consumes games on an astonishing scale. This paradox highlights a more serious structural issue with the gaming discourse in India. Our national conversation around gaming often begins and ends with regulation i.e., online betting, taxation, fantasy gaming legality, addiction and compliance. Although these worries are valid they have inadvertently obscured a much more crucial query: is India creating a gaming industry or is it just regulating a gaming market? Various subject-matter experts have expressed their views on this issue, like Shailendra Vikram Singh Former Deputy Secretary (Cyber & Information Security), Ministry of Home Affairs who is of the opinion,
“I believe India’s gaming story presents a unique paradox. While we are one of the world’s largest gaming markets, we have yet to fully realize gaming’s potential as a strategic pillar of the AVGC vision. Much of the conversation remains focused on regulation and consumption, whereas the larger opportunity lies in creation, innovation, and global competitiveness.
In my view, gaming should be recognized as a strategic creative and digital industry. It has the potential to generate high-value employment, foster indigenous intellectual property, and strengthen capabilities in design, storytelling, animation, immersive technologies, and emerging digital skills. Beyond its economic value, gaming can also serve as a powerful platform for education, skilling, and public engagement.
I also see gaming as an important medium for bringing India’s rich cultural heritage, historical narratives, and diverse traditions to global audiences through interactive storytelling. As digital experiences increasingly shape how younger generations learn, engage, and understand the world, culturally rooted content can become a source of both creative expression and national soft power.
At the same time, sustainable growth must be built on trust. Strong safeguards for cybersecurity, child protection, user safety, responsible gaming, and data governance are essential to creating a resilient and trusted ecosystem.
To realize the full promise of the AVGC vision, I believe India must aspire to be more than a large gaming market. A nation of gamers must ultimately become a nation of game creators.”
The Misplaced Focus of Regulating Bodies
A country with one of the world’s oldest storytelling civilizations should not remain from the world’s most influential storytelling medium. Examining how other nations viewed gaming as a strategic cultural enterprise highlights the disparity even further. Japan turned gaming into a tool of soft power by exporting global icons like Mario, Pokémon and Zelda. Along with K-pop and digital culture, South Korea incorporated gaming into its larger cultural export sector. With businesses like Tencent and games like Genshin Impact and Black Myth: Wukong, China is now aggressively marketing gaming as a geopolitical and technological impact ecosystem.
Through The Witcher, Poland even showed how local folklore based storytelling may achieve cultural relevance on a worldwide scale. In contrast, India contributes very little to the global gaming imagination despite having one of the strongest civilisational storytelling traditions in human history, including the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Buddhist Narratives, tribal folklore, Indic mythology and regional legends.
Artificial Intelligence and Lore of Lost Opportunities
The arrival of artificial intelligence now changes this equation dramatically. AI is lowering the barriers to creativity in ways previously unimaginable. For character design, procedural storytelling, localisation, environment creation, NPC interactions, voice synthesis and animation pipelines, independent producers and small studios can now use generative AI. Agile creative ecosystems are increasingly able to accomplish what formerly required enormous infrastructure and production teams. This offers India a once-in-a-lifetime chance to overcome conventional developmental barriers in the gaming sector. India may become a global center for AI-assisted storytelling, culturally grounded gaming storylines and scalable independent game production instead of competing just through capital-intensive AAA ecosystems.
The AVGC Promotion Task Force for India’s Digital future explicitly highlighted the significance of intellectual property development, academic integration, skilling and incubation systems. However, India still views gaming more as a compliance industry than as a significant creative economy. Economists use revenue forecasts to discuss gaming. Taxation frameworks are used by policymakers to discuss it. However, narrative ownership, digital culture, creative sovereignty and gaming as a long-term civilisational export are not sufficiently discussed.
Playing Everyone Else’s Game
The actual danger does not lie in the fact India won’t grow into a sizable gaming industry. The change has already taken place. The bigger risk is that, in a global market that is becoming more and more controlled by foreign narratives, foreign engines and foreign platforms, India may permanently remain a consumer ecosystem. Processors and graphic engines won’t be the only factors influencing gaming in the future, cultures that can emotionally engage worlds will also play a significant role. India possesses the depth of civilisation, creative heritage, technical prowess and population size necessary to develop into such a creator economy. It does not, however, have a consistent institutional focus on supporting studios, storytellers, animators and original intellectual property ecosystems.
References
- AVGC Promotion Task Force Report, Government of India
- KPMG India Media & Entertainment Reports
- EY-FICCI Media & Entertainment Industry Reports
- Newzoo Global Games Market Reports
- Lumikai “State of India Gaming” Reports
- UNESCO Reports on Cultural & Creative Industries
- World Economic Forum reports on AI and Creative Economies
Introduction
Charity and donation scams have continued to persist and are amplified in the digital era, where messages spread rapidly through WhatsApp, emails, and social media. These fraudulent schemes involve threat actors impersonating legitimate charities, government appeals, or social causes to solicit funds. Apart from targeting the general public, they also impact entities such as reputable tech firms and national institutions. Victims are tricked into transferring money or sharing personal information, often under the guise of urgent humanitarian efforts or causes.
A recent incident involves a fake WhatsApp message claiming to be from the Indian Ministry of Defence. The message urged users to donate to a fund for “modernising the Indian Army.” The government later confirmed this message was entirely fabricated and part of a larger scam. It emphasised that no such appeal had been issued by the Ministry, and urged citizens to verify such claims through official government portals before responding.
Tech Industry and Donation-Related Scams
Large corporations are also falling prey. According to media reports, an American IT company recently terminated around 700 Indian employees after uncovering a donation-related fraud. At least 200 of them were reportedly involved in a scheme linked to Telugu organisations in the US. The scam echoed a similar situation that had previously affected Apple, where Indian employees were fired after being implicated in donation fraud tied to the Telugu Association of North America (TANA). Investigations revealed that employees had made questionable donations to these groups in exchange for benefits such as visa support or employment favours.
Common People Targeted
While organisational scandals grab headlines, the common man remains equally or even more vulnerable. In a recent incident, a man lost over ₹1 lakh after clicking on a WhatsApp link asking for donations to a charity. Once he engaged with the link, the fraudsters manipulated him into making repeated transfers under various pretexts, ranging from processing fees to refund-related transactions (social engineering). Scammers often employ a similar set of tactics using urgency, emotional appeal, and impersonation of credible platforms to convince and deceive people.
Cautionary Steps
CyberPeace recommends adopting a cautious and informed approach when making charitable donations, especially online. Here are some key safety measures to follow:
- Verify Before You Donate. Always double-check the legitimacy of donation appeals. Use official government portals or the official charities' websites. Be wary of unfamiliar phone numbers, email addresses, or WhatsApp forwards asking for money.
- Avoid Clicking on Suspicious Links
Never click on links or download attachments from unknown or unverified sources. These could be phishing links/ malware designed to steal your data or access your bank accounts. - Be Sceptical of Urgency Scammers bank on creating a false sense of urgency to pressure their victims into donating quickly. One must take the time to evaluate before responding.
- Use Secure Payment Channels Ensure that one makes donations only through platforms that are secure, trusted, and verified. These include official UPI handles, government-backed portals (like PM CARES or Bharat Kosh), among others.
- Report Suspected Fraud In case one receives suspicious messages or falls victim to a scam, they are encouraged to report it to cybercrime authorities via cybercrime.gov.in (1930) or the local police, as prompt reporting can prevent further fraud.
Conclusion
Charity should never come at the cost of trust and safety. While donating to a good cause is noble, doing it mindfully is essential in today’s scam-prone environment. Always remember: a little caution today can save a lot tomorrow.
References
- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/misleading-message-circulating-on-whatsapp-related-to-donation-for-armys-modernisation-govt/articleshow/120672806.cms?from=mdr
- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/american-company-sacks-700-of-these-200-in-donation-scam-related-to-telugu-organisations-similar-to-firing-at-apple/articleshow/120075189.cms
- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/apple-fires-some-indians-over-donation-fraud-tana-under-scrutiny/articleshow/117034457.cms
- https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/man-gets-link-for-donation-and-charity-on-whatsapp-loses-over-rs-1-lakh-after-clicking-on-it-2688616-2025-03-04
When your digital identity becomes raw material for someone else’s imagination, who really owns your face?
On July 7, 2026, Meta launched Muse Image, the first standalone image-generation model developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs under Alexandr Wang. Positioned as a competitor to OpenAI’s GPT Images 2.0 and Google’s Nano Banana 2, the launch highlights Meta’s growing ambitions in the generative AI race. Yet beneath the technical advancements lies a far more consequential question than what AI can create, but about who gets to decide what it creates with?
That ambition of generative AI comes with a cost, and one of Muse Image's most controversial design choices is its integration with Instagram, which allows public profiles to become creative references for AI-generated images. Users can tag public Instagram accounts in prompts and generate AI images inspired by that person’s publicly available content. Meta presents this as a new form of personalization and creativity. However, critics argue that the feature transforms years of personal photographs into a massive library of AI-ready human identities, where non-action automatically becomes permission. The concern is not just that AI can generate realistic images. The concern is that consent itself is being manipulated in a way.
The opt-out system most users never asked for
Muse Image operates through Meta AI’s integration with Instagram. A user can reference a public Instagram profile in a prompt, allowing the system to generate images influenced by that person’s existing content and likeness. Under the default arrangement, the person whose profile is being referenced may not necessarily approve the generation beforehand.
Meta does provide users with controls to restrict this functionality. The setting exists under Instagram’s “Sharing and reuse” options, where users can disable permissions related to the use of their posts and reels with Meta’s AI features. But the larger issue is the direction in which responsibility flows. Instead of requiring active permission before someone’s likeness becomes available for AI-generated content, the burden is placed on individuals to discover the feature, understand the implications, locate the setting, and disable it. In a digital environment where users already navigate endless privacy menus, cookie banners, and terms of service agreements, expecting meaningful awareness from billions of people becomes unrealistic. Consent that depends on finding the exit door is very different from consent that begins with a choice.
A guide for opting-out
One way of opting out is to have a private account. As verified, Meta does not encroach on private accounts as of now for image-generation.
But if you have a public account, here are the steps that can be followed to secure yourself from Meta’s Muse automatic consent:
On your profile, tap the menu bar which is on the top right (≡), you will enter into ‘setting and activity’, after that you will see an option of ‘sharing and refuse’ and then disable the options under it, namely- Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features at Meta. Notably, the changes made will be only for your future content not the already existing content on your public profile.
Why “public” does not mean “available for anything”
The debate around Muse Image highlights a deeper misunderstanding at the center of modern digital platforms: the difference between visibility and reuse. When someone makes an Instagram account public, they are generally making a decision about the audience. They are allowing others to view their photos, discover their profile, or engage with their content. That decision was never traditionally understood as permission for their face, appearance, personal moments, or identity markers to become reusable components in AI-generated media. A photograph posted online has context. It represents a specific moment, purpose, relationship, or expression. Generative AI changes that equation because it separates identity from context. A person’s likeness can be extracted from its original context and placed into entirely new situations created by someone else. Muse Image does not just expand who can see your content. It expands what can be done with it. That distinction is what scales the problem for every public user on the app. The privacy implications become significantly larger because of Instagram’s global reach. With billions of users worldwide, even a small percentage of affected public accounts represents an enormous number of people. Many public profiles do not belong to celebrities, influencers, or creators who intentionally operate as public brands. They belong to students, professionals, small businesses, artists, photographers, and everyday users who simply chose visibility within a social network.
For years, platforms encouraged people to share more, build audiences, and maintain a public digital presence. Now, the meaning of that public presence is changing after the fact. The question becomes: should a decision made years ago to share photos socially automatically extend into permission for generative AI systems built years later?
There is also a catch while opting out. Changing these settings only protects your content from being used in future AI generations, it does not undo anything that has already happened. Any AI images previously created using your public profile will remain unaffected. Essentially, the opt-out works as a shield for what comes next, not a reset button for what has already been created.
A familiar pattern in the AI era
Muse Image reflects a broader pattern emerging across the technology industry. New AI capabilities are introduced at massive scale, participation becomes the default, and individual control arrives afterward through settings that many users may never find. The same debates that once surrounded targeted advertising, data collection, and algorithmic profiling are now moving into a far more personal territory, the human identity itself. Faces are not ordinary data points. Unlike a username, password, or preference setting, a person cannot simply replace their appearance once it has been widely replicated.
Technical solutions such as AI watermarking and content labels may help identify generated material, but they address authenticity after creation. They do not answer the question of whether the generation should have happened in the first place.
Innovation cannot replace consent
The technological progress behind Muse Image is significant. Better image generation, improved text rendering, and more personalized creative tools represent genuine advances in artificial intelligence. But capability alone cannot determine acceptability. The future of AI will not only depend on how realistic images become, how powerful models become, or how quickly companies can deploy new features. It will also depend on whether people feel they have meaningful control over their own digital identities. Muse Image is therefore more than another AI product launch. It represents a defining question for the next phase of the internet: Will our online presence remain something we control, or will it become something others can generate?
