‘Sausage fingers and nonsense slogans’: Tice’s campaign photo sparks AI manipulation row

Extra fingers, melted faces, and jumbled signs. This isn’t your typical group of political canvassers.

Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice triumphantly posted a photo of party supporters on X on Sunday.

"That is what belief looks like," he said as he celebrated Reform’s meteoric rise in the polls since then.

It didn’t take long for people to accuse the Boston and Skegness MP of using artificial intelligence to create the image.

Critics pointed to the abundant sausage fingers, as well as placards that appeared to read "Vote Reform, Get Stuppence Out," instead of "Get Starmer Out."

One supporter doesn’t even seem to be holding a sign at all.

Analysis by Peryton Intelligence, a digital intelligence company specializing in online hate and manipulation, said the image was almost certainly AI-generated or altered, The Guardian reports.

Reform told Metro the photograph was just "touched up for easier viewing, mainly to adjust the brightness," but they insisted it "is a real image of Reform UK activists campaigning."

They attached the original and shadowy picture too, which shows the crew of canvassers appearing far more human-like.

Metro asked how exactly the photo was touched up, and whether Mr. Tice used AI to do the enhancement.

Reform did not respond.

What has the reaction been?

Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party, said: "There’s nothing real about the Reform party. Their supposed policies for working people are fake, they spin stories that are fake and now we know even their campaigners are fake."

In the X post, Tice recalled how supporters had gathered in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham, in 2022, where the party only received 293 votes in a byelection.

He said of his recent visit: "The support, the recognition and the mood was something I had never quite seen before.

"On 7 May, this part of Birmingham is extremely likely to elect Reform councillors, and in a general election it could go even further and elect a Reform member of parliament. That possibility felt distant four years ago. It does not feel distant now."

Matt Goodwin, who failed to get elected as an MP during the Gorton and Denton byelection, garnered the nickname "MattGPT" when he allegedly used AI to write a new book.

Historical figures appeared to be misquoted and some of the footnote URLs contained "chatGPT in them."

Goodwin acknowledged using AI to research some data, but disputed that any of his book was written using the technology.