Manchester City star Phil Foden has sought legal advice after fake news stories circulated on social media falsely claiming that one of his children had died and the other was battling cancer. The fabricated posts, which included digitally edited images, were shared widely on platforms such as Facebook.
Rebecca Cooke, the mother of Foden's children, publicly addressed the false allegations, calling them 'completely false and very disturbing'. She said: 'I don't understand how people can make up these things about anyone, especially children. It's sickening.'
The Manchester Evening News has identified multiple Facebook pages using AI to create doctored images of celebrities, including sports stars and TV personalities, accompanied by entirely false captions. These pages, some with tens of thousands of followers, receive thousands of shares, likes and comments, often using phrases like 'verified information' to appear credible.
Social media experts say the problem is fuelled by algorithms that 'exploit trust and emotion on a major scale'. Meta, Facebook's parent company, states it has policies to deal with misinformation, including adding warnings and removing content that may contribute to imminent harm.
Examples of fake posts include an AI-generated image of a TV presenter with a bald head claiming she is in the 'final chapters of her life' battling breast cancer, and a post about a TV couple holding an artificially edited baby scan despite no pregnancy confirmation. Such posts have garnered thousands of reactions and comments from users offering well wishes.
