A photo showing a woman wearing a navy blue suit with her cleavages exposed has surfaced online with a claim that it shows Twitter’s newly appointed Chief Executive Officer, Linda Yaccarino.
Twitter owner, Elon Musk, named a new chief executive officer for Twitter, just over six months after his controversial takeover of the social media company.
The billionaire said Linda Yaccarino, the former head of advertising at NBC Universal, would oversee business operations of the social media platform, which has been struggling to make money. Her appointment would take effect in six weeks, BBC News reported.
Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!
My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2023
A Twitter user, Ama Sadat shared the photo on Friday, May 12, 2023 with caption that reads:
“Elon Musk employs new twitter CEO called Linda Yaccarino.”
The tweet has garnered over 1500 retweets, more than 20,000 likes with over one million views before it was removed by Twitter for violating its rule.
The claim has since then been circulated on several accounts on Twitter.
For instance, a Twitter user, @_Itarex tweeted the photo with a caption that reads :
“The new Twitter CEO got my full support.”
The tweet has generated more than 70 retweets and over 300 likes.
Similarly, a picture of a woman with part of her cleavages exposed was also circulated with the same claim.
A Twitter user, @RedLightning420 tweeted the photo with similar caption:
“The new twitter CEO got my full support.”
CLAIM
Photos show the new Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, Linda Yaccarino.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is FALSE.
First, checks revealed that the faces in the images in circulation do not match with the face of the new CEO of Twitter, Linda Yaccarino.
Yaccarino’s face looks older than the faces of women in the viral pictures.
Further findings by The FactCheckHub show that the images were created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The images were AI images created by a Twitter account, @AIkawa_Alko_jp2, a profile that produces adult contents with Artificial Intelligence. A look at the Twitter account shows it has shared similar images in the past.
The images in circulation had earlier been shared by the account as archived here and here.
The rise of deep fake technology has given rise to concerns about the potential for AI to be used to spread misinformation and disinformation because of its ability to create fake visuals of people, places and events that seem real.
This technology has become increasingly sophisticated and powerful due to its ability to create highly convincing visuals that can be used to spread misinformation.
THE VERDICT
The claim that the images show the new Chief Executive Officer of Twitter is FALSE; findings show that the images were created using Artificial Intelligence.
Nurudeen Akewushola is a fact-checker with FactCheckHub. He has authored several fact checks which have contributed to the fight against information disorder. You can reach him via [email protected] and @NurudeenAkewus1 via Twitter.
