An AI-generated image of Mike Tyson posing with the Palestinian flag is being shared as real

A post going viral on social media (here, here, and here) features images of former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson in the ring, with a Palestinian flag draped over his shoulders. The posts claim that the image was taken before his fight with Jake Paul on 15 November  2024. Let’s verify the claim through this article.

The archived post can be found here.

Claim: Mike Tyson posed with the Palestinian flag before his recent boxing match against Jake Paul.

Fact: The viral image of Mike Tyson posing with the Palestinian flag is AI-generated. A thorough review of the match found no footage of such an event, and keyword searches yielded no credible news sources supporting the claim. Discrepancies in the image were analysed using the AI Detector tool, which confirmed it was created using Artificial Intelligence. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.

To verify the claim, we conducted a thorough review of the entire match but found no footage of Mike Tyson posing with the Palestinian flag, either before or after the event. We also performed a search using relevant keywords, but this did not yield any credible news sources to support the claim. Given that mainstream media would cover such a significant occurrence, we found no reports on the matter.

We also identified discrepancies in the depiction of the Palestinian flag. In the viral image, the tip of the red triangle on the flag draped around Tyson faces towards the flag’s border, whereas in reality, the tip points outward, towards the right side of the flag. A comparison between the viral image and the correct depiction of the Palestinian flag is shown below.

We also noticed the viral images lack Tyson’s prominent chest tattoo honouring his late daughter Exodus. 

We suspected the image to be AI-generated and analysed it using the True Media AI Detector tool, which indicated that the image was created using artificial intelligence.

However, Tyson has not taken a partisan stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. He was seen wearing a wristband supporting Palestine (Archive link) and spoke against antisemitism. In November 2023, Tyson attended a dinner in Miami that turned out to be an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) fundraising event. He later clarified he was invited as part of a casual dinner and was unaware of its fundraising purpose.

To sum up, an AI-generated image of Mike Tyson posing with the Palestinian flag is being shared as real.