A car is shown at a Tim Hortons restaurant drive-thru window in Newcastle, Ont., on Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018. A realistic, but fake, image of a protest against Tim Hortons has received millions of views on social media. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Doug Ives
A car is shown at a Tim Hortons restaurant drive-thru window in Newcastle, Ont., on Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018. A realistic, but fake, image of a protest against Tim Hortons has received millions of views on social media. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Doug Ives
Several viral social media posts claim that people in Canada are boycotting coffee and restaurant chain Tim Hortons over its hiring practices. The posts use images appearing to show people protesting the food chain or standing outside a location. These images are fake. The images were generated by artificial intelligence and don't reflect real-life events.
An formerly known as Twitter, said immigrants have "taken all the jobs & Canadias are no longer being hired." The post included an image of a man appearing to be marching in a protest holding a sign saying, "Boycott Tim Hortons until they stop hiring immigrants."
The post has more than 6,000 likes and 5.7 million views as of publication.
Another earlier in the day and also posted in the replies that shows a large group of people standing outside a Tim Hortons.
Rating: Fake images
The images used in the post are generated by artificial intelligence tools and have clear features that reveal they were created by programs and don't show real people or events.
Analysis from AI image detecting tool found that the image of a person holding a sign was 99 per cent likely to be generated by an AI image program. The same tool found that the other image with people standing outside Tim Hortons also had a 99 per cent likelihood of being AI-generated, and identified text-to-image generation model as the most-likely tool used.
which uses machine learning models to detect AI-generated content, also indicated both images were99 per cent likely to be generated by AI.
Both images have many features that show they were generated by AI.
The image of the man holding a sign calling on people to boycott Tim Hortons has an extremely blurred background to hide the shape of the city buildings in the image.
The person holding the sign also has a blurry face and appears to be wearing winter clothes that are inconsistent with the current weather conditions in Canada's major cities. It's also unclear whether he has on a hat or a hoodie or both.
The sign in the image is fixed to a post with two fasteners that have inconsistent shapes. The lettering on the sign mixes upper- and lowercase letters, with a seemingly random mix of red and black text.
The sign has also what appears to be a gibberish lettering on the bottom left.
The second image also has several features that show it was generated by AI, including a blurred background and an unusually smooth Tim Hortons store sign.
The awning above the store window with the Tim Hortons logo also includes what appears to be a gibberish writing, "new jists," which is not part of any Tim Hortons branding.
The X user who originally posted the images on Oct. 6 of the other viral post, appearing to confirm they made the image: "Funny to see others using the picture I made 'Boycott Tim Hortons' and watching it go viral with them too, lol."
The user provided no basis for the claim that ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs are no longer being hired at Tim Hortons and ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø could not find any evidence to support this claim.
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø origin is protected under the and Tim Hortons cannot discriminate against foreigners who are allowed to work in Canada.
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø reached to the account that posted the images asking about their sources but did not receive a response.
Sources
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