Mark Ruffalo, known for his roles in Disney-Marvel movies and his left-leaning views, recently found himself in hot water for sharing AI-generated photos of Donald Trump. These images, falsely depicting Trump with young girls on a plane, were quickly identified as fake. However, Ruffalo’s apology for sharing these images was less than wholehearted, as he shifted the blame to Elon Musk and his management of Twitter/X.
On January 4, Ruffalo reacted with outrage to a post by Denise D. Wheeler, which featured the fabricated images of a younger Trump on Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious jet, the “Lolita Express.” Ruffalo expressed his disdain for what he believed were genuine photos, criticizing #MAGA supporters for overlooking Trump’s supposed actions.
He wrote, “Disgusting. #MAGA tries to label everyone on those planes as pedophiles, except the one man grinning among a bunch of young girls, all flying to Epstein’s ‘Fantasy Island’ with him. I’d wager there are still some decent republicans in America who’d find this crossing the line.”
Yet, it didn’t take long for other users to point out that these images were artificial, created by an AI program. This revelation led to a fact-check notice being attached to Ruffalo’s post.
When Ruffalo acknowledged the images were indeed fakes, he didn’t just admit to being misled. Instead, he targeted Elon Musk, blaming him for the proliferation of these AI fakes. He criticized Musk for not censoring right-wing accounts as stringently as platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
“Sorry folks. Turns out these images are AI fakes,” Ruffalo admitted. “The truth about Trump being on Epstein’s plane and Epstein’s activities is not a fake, though. Be cautious. Elon’s X and his tolerance of so much misinformation here is tanking the value of his app by 55%.”
However, many users on X/Twitter were not satisfied with Ruffalo’s attempt at an apology and his effort to place the blame on others for his own spread of false information.
