Did Crypto Twitter send deepfake Pentagon attack image to crash stock market?

The news quickly went viral on social media news sites such as Reddit and Twitter. A deepfake photo of an attack on the Pentagon, the building where the US Department of Defense is located, briefly caused a dip in the US stock markets on Monday evening.

According to posters on Reddit, “Crypto Twitter,” the group of influencers who are big fans of Bitcoin and constantly talk about it on Twitter, are to blame for spreading the hoax.

An AI image of an explosion near the Pentagon caused the market to sell off violently for a few minutes before it was debunked and removed.

Run it back. pic.twitter.com/xP82HCBmys

— K A L E O (@CryptoKaleo) May 22, 2023

Flashcrash

Reddit, the very popular social media site, knows for sure. It was accounts on “crypto Twitter” that caused the hoax to spread like wildfire.

First, the “news” (an AI-created photo showing an explosion next to the Pentagon) was posted by “Bloomberg Feed,” a bogus account of someone who paid Twitter $8 to put a blue checkmark next to their account name.

After that, the news was eagerly picked up for many others and retweeted. It briefly caused panic in the stock markets. Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, also experienced a ‘flash crash’ following the spread of the image, and slipped to $26500 before recovering.

According to commenters, this all happened to briefly crash the stock markets and thus profit with shorts. This allows you to make a lot of money until some official account declares the news fake and the market is reset to its previous level.

This morning blue check accounts accounts claimed large explosions at the Pentagon.

… then the White House.

Russian state media amplified the faked Pentagon image from their gold check account.

The images look AI generated, as folks identified. 1/ pic.twitter.com/Bd9uu3jwPZ

— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) May 22, 2023

Fire department

In this case, it was the fire department of Arlington, Virginia, where the Pentagon is located, who debunked the news.

There is NO explosion or incident taking place at or near the Pentagon reservation, and there is no immediate danger or hazards to the public

They stated

We don’t know if ‘crypto twitter’ was indeed responsible for the incident, but don’t count on the US government suddenly becoming a fan of everything related to crypto and social media. Arguably, this is just the beginning of AI images influencing stock and crypto markets.