AI slop targets stars on Facebook over the holidays.

During the Christmas season, Facebook posts claimed multiple celebrities funded new churches; AFP analysis and AI-detection tools found the images and text were likely AI-generated and lacked independent evidence.

As people celebrated Christmas in the United States, widely shared Facebook posts claimed that celebrities quietly funded and opened new churches for struggling communities. The stories named figures from Melania Trump to Sabrina Carpenter and included images and similar article text repeated across different posts. AFP examined the posts, ran searches and used AI-detection tools to assess the material. The findings pointed to AI-generated content rather than verifiable events. What is known: - Multiple Facebook posts claimed celebrities paid for new church construction and shared near-identical text and images that named different public figures. - Reverse image and keyword searches found no credible evidence that the reported church projects actually took place or that the named celebrities funded them. - Independent AI-detection tools cited by AFP (a Resemble AI model and Google’s SynthID) flagged the images and content as likely AI-generated. - The accompanying articles showed repeated phrasing, homoglyphs and architectural inconsistencies, and the Facebook pages promoting them drew thousands of interactions. Summary: The posts circulated widely during the holidays but were reported as lacking independent verification and showing signs of AI manipulation. Undetermined at this time.