No, crowd at U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris' rally was not 'fake'

Context

On August 11, former U.S. President Donald Trump posted a photo on Truth Social, a social media platform owned by the Trump Media & Technology Group, of his opponent Kamala Harris' campaign rally. The image shows a crowd of people greeting the Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee as she stepped off a plane in Detroit (Romulus), Michigan on August 7. In his post, Trump claimed that the large group of people was not there and that the photo was doctored. "Look, we caught her with a fake 'crowd.' There was no one there!" he stated. The post was liked by more than 23,000 users and shared by more than 8,000 others. 

Trump also wrote in another post that Harris "A.I.'d'" it to show a massive "crowd". He added that the alleged tampering by Kamala Harris could be confirmed by the reflection on the vice president's plane. An additional photo he shared shows that there are no people in the reflection on the side of the plane, but rather an empty landing strip. The alleged "photo evidence", originally shared on X and viewed by 12 million users, was posted by conservative commentator Chuck Callesto, who has previously been caught spreading misinformation. 

However, our research shows that Trump's claim is false and that a crowd indeed greeted Kamala Harris. The claim that the image was created using artificial intelligence cannot be substantiated either.

In fact

The image in question was originally posted by the Harris campaign on X. First, we verified the photo using Winston AI, which detects how much of an image is AI-generated and how much is human-generated. The result shows that the probability of this image being AI-generated is negligible, as the tool confirms with 97 percent probability that it is human-generated.

The AI or not tool also rated the photo as "Likely human". Similarly, Sightengine gave the photo only a 5 percent chance of being AI-generated.

The Is It AI detector, however, judged that it is "somewhat likely" that a photo has been generated using artificial intelligence. 

Lead Stories ran the image through an online tool called the DeepFake-o-meter, "hosted by the University at Buffalo's Media Forensic Lab, which focuses on 'forensic analysis of digital media'." It confirmed that the rally image showed no signs of being AI-generated.

Components that are often clearly transformed in AI photos are not visible in this image. Human limbs are often the first to be distorted. In the case of the photo in question, which shows a large number of hands and fingers, an AI-generated version would likely result in the fingers not being clearly marked. The grip of human hands on mobile devices would also be unclear. In contrast, this photo shows in detail how fingers grip a mobile device. 

AI also still struggles with human hair and other textures and is not yet convincing in the photos it generates. The photo of the rally shows an authentic image of human hair, with "protruding" hair and some occasional hair-like asymmetries, while the "necessary symmetries," such as the number of arms and legs, and the shape of the human body, are present in the image shared by Trump. 

At the same time, there are no hallmarks or additional elements in the photograph to indicate that it has been tampered with.

Based on our research and the image authentication tools Logically Facts and other fact-checking organizations tested, it can be concluded that the photo is genuine. 

The Harris campaign also provided the original digital image as taken by their official photographer to Lead Stories. "With its greater resolution, there is better clarity when you zoom in. The images of the people appear more natural than the lower-resolution photos online appear after being processed through the social media platform," Lead Stories states.

The crowd's presence at the rally can also be determined from other sources. For example, the event was broadcast live on Fox Business, and the video shows the crowd outside Kamala Harris's plane.

(Source: Fox Business/YouTube/Screenshot)

Snopes also found photos that depicted a similar scene at the Detroit Metro Airport in The Associated Press' image archive. "For example, an image by photojournalist Carlos Osorio shows a similar angle of the crowd, though with different lighting," they state.

Other videos on social media support this. In this video, a Kamala Harris team member shows a scene from a photo from several different angles. BBC Verify reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh posted more photos of the crowd on X. New York Times reporter Kellen Browning posted a video showing several hands filming Harris's arrival here.

CNN cameras also caught a large crowd at the rally, as did the Detroit Times (more videos here). More footage has been posted by eyewitnesses and participants and can be found here, here, and here.

The official rapid response page of Vice President Harris' presidential campaign has denied Trump's claim on X, saying: "This is an actual photo of a 15,000-person crowd for Harris-Walz in Michigan."

Verdict

Based on an analysis of the image, the simultaneous video streams of the rally, and comparable photos from the event, we can conclude that there were indeed people in attendance at the rally and that the photo Donald Trump posted was not generated by AI. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.