00:04You're watching Euronews' fact-checking show, The Cube.
00:07French President Emmanuel Macron hosted the Thai king Mahavadji Walongkorn and Queen Sedita in late June.
00:14The trip marked the first official visit to France by a Thai monarch since 1960
00:19and marked the 170th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries.
00:25During the visit, Macron presented the king with a grand cross of the Legion of Honor
00:29France's highest award.
00:31He also gave the queen the grand cross of the National Order of Merit.
00:35But online, this image started to spread,
00:37perpetually showing Macron kneeling as he presented the award.
00:42It was posted by a Thai-language entertainment Facebook page where it was shared more than 20,000 times.
00:47Several users commented that they viewed Macron highly as a result of the image,
00:51with one calling him a true leader.
00:53But we ran it through OpenAI's image verification tool,
00:57which revealed that the image is AI-generated.
01:00By comparing the outfits worn by Thailand's king and queen with those featured in the image,
01:06we also found that there were missing details in the picture of Macron kneeling.
01:10There are no verified images of the royal's trip to France that show Macron kneeling during the ceremony.
01:16An official from Thailand's foreign ministry also confirmed to AFP that the image was AI-generated.
01:22It's not the first time AI-manipulated images depicting Thailand's royal family have gone viral.
01:27In June, an image claimed to show members of the Thai royal family crying
01:31after the death of the king's eldest daughter gained widespread sympathy online.
01:36But it turned out that it had been artificially created.
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