Eiffel Tower On Fire AI Hoax

About

The Eiffel Tower On Fire AI Hoax refers to a series of viral photos and videos that appeared to show the Eiffel Tower in flames and were believed to be made using an artificial intelligence image generator. The images were widely spread on social media after appearing in mid-January 2024, furthered by the fact that some people seemingly believed the footage was real, which led to discussions and worry about the sophistication of AI technology for creating deepfakes and spreading misinformation.

Origin

The most widely posted and cited TikTok about the Eiffel Tower being on fire was posted on January 18th, 2024, by TikToker @kazakhstandazhasalgan (seen below) and earned over 10.9 million likes and 154.8 million views over the course of five days.^[1] The post was a slideshow featuring a sped-up version of the Stromae song "Formidable" and three photos that looped together.

In the comments of this post, users debated whether the photos were AI or real, discussing how they used other online tools to prove the images were not authentic. There were over 131,000 comments on the post after its first five days up on the platform along with over 98,000 shares and 782,000 saves (examples shown below).

Spread

Another video showing the Eiffel Tower on fire was posted on January 21st, 2024, by TikToker @rastgele_ritm, earning over 159,000 likes and 7.3 million views in two days (seen below).^[2]

On January 22nd, TikToker @verifythis ran a fact-check on another video of the Eiffel Tower on fire, earning over 11,000 likes and over 940,000 views in less than a day (seen below, left).^[3]

Many took the chance to post content criticizing those who might have believed in the false footage, including TikToker @mattmills (seen below, right), who received over 13,000 likes and 1 million views in one day on January 22nd, saying "AI is going to be a problem."^[4] Often, these sorts of posts pointed out that it was unlikely for an all-metal structure like the Eiffel Tower to catch fire in this way and recommended users respond more skeptically to content they meet online and were structured as green screens.

Twitter / X user @norbfrog posted about the widely circulated hoax on January 22nd, lamenting that "it's so over" and earning over 5,700 likes in a day (seen below) about the original @kazakhstandazhasalgan post, which at that point reportedly had only 4.7 million likes compared to the 10.9 million it would have a little over a day later.^[5]

Fact checks about the Eiffel Tower fire were then published by Reuters on January 18th, 2024, The Sun on the 22nd and other outlets over the following days.^[6][7]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References