White House Admits to Sharing a Fake Photo of Minnesota Activist After Her Arrest

The White House communications team posted a digitally altered photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong, a Minnesota social justice activist, on Thursday that makes it appear that she was weeping during her arrest by federal agents.

The image is highly realistic, bearing no watermark or other indicator that the image has been doctored. The change is only apparent when compared to a different version of the same image posted by the Department of Homeland Security earlier in the day.

The White House, which has adopted a combative, flippant tone on its widely viewed social media pages, drew some backlash for the post online. In response, White House deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr called the image a “meme.”

“YET AGAIN to the people who feel the need to reflexively defend perpetrators of heinous crimes in our country I share with you this message: Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue,” he wrote on X. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Levy Armstrong, an attorney and the former president of the Minneapolis NAACP, was arrested in connection with her involvement in a protest at a Minnesota church service where one of the pastors is believed to be affiliated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

She was one of three activists arrested on Thursday over the protest. Officials said they will be charged under a federal law against conspiring to violate others’ rights. The activists have said they were engaged in peaceful protest.

On Thursday afternoon, a federal magistrate judge rejected the federal government’s efforts to bring similar charges against media personality Don Lemon, who was also present but said he was there as a journalist.

The use of digitally altered images in politics, especially through the use of artificial intelligence, is controversial and unregulated. The White House — on social media and through the president’s Truth Social page — regularly posts AI-generated content.

It’s unclear the full extent to which the White House uses such technology, though a spokesperson said in an email that images of ICE detainees, like the ones President Donald Trump showed to members of the press on Monday, were not edited.

“The White House account often posts memes to effectively communicate our message. The criminal illegal aliens that the President presented were not digitally altered,” the spokesperson wrote. “You should cover the heinous crimes committed by criminal illegal aliens, and the individuals who stormed a place of worship, instead of looking for news ways to defend criminals.”

Trump signed the “Take It Down Act” last year, which regulates the creation and dissemination of “intimate” images that are digital forgeries or deepfakes. But there are currently no federal laws regulating the creation and dissemination of nonconsensual digitally altered images in general.

It’s also becoming increasingly common in politics generally. The National Republican Senatorial Committee defended its use of artificial intelligence in a deepfake of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last year.