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Images and videos purporting to show the historic Hollywood sign engulfed in flames are spreading across X and other social media platforms as wildfires rage through Los Angeles, California. But the visuals are fakes, some likely generated by artificial intelligence; the landmark had not been affected as of January 10, 2025."BREAKING: Hollywood sign is on Fire," says a January 8, 2025 post sharing one such picture on X.
Screenshot from X taken January 9, 2024
Similar images and videos purporting to show fires surrounding or enveloping the famous monument, which sits atop Mount Lee in Los Angeles's Griffith Park, spread across X and other platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook.
Screenshot from X taken January 9, 2024
Screenshot from X taken January 9, 2024
Screenshot from TikTok taken January 9, 2024
Screenshot from X taken January 9, 2024
The posts came as fast-moving blazes swept through Los Angeles, causing several fatalities and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. A vast firefighting operation continued for a fourth day on January 10 as shell-shocked residents surveyed the destruction and officials warned the largest fires remained uncontained.
The fires have at points threatened to burn through parts of the Hollywood Hills, where an evacuation order was issued for a number of streets and fighters dumped water from helicopters flying overhead.
But as of January 10, the historic Hollywood sign had not been burned, AFP journalists in the city confirmed.
AFP captured photos of the sign as it could be seen on January 9 from the corner of Gower Street and Temple Hill Drive.
The Hollywood sign remains unburned on January 9, 2025 as wildfires rage through Los Angeles, CaliforniaRobyn BECKAFP
Robyn BECK / AFPJeff Zarrinnam, chair of the Hollywood Sign Trust, also told AFP in a January 9 email that while Griffith Park was temporarily closed for safety, the Hollywood sign was "not affected and is secure." The organization, which maintains the sign and operates its webcams, posted on Instagram that the images of the monument in flames were fake (archived here).
A publicist for the Hollywood Walk of Fame also confirmed the images are fake.
GetReal Labs, a deepfake detection company, analyzed several of the visuals claiming to portray the sign on fire and told AFP in a January 9 email that they appear to be fabricated -- in at least some cases using AI-technology.
The visuals carry clear indicators they are inauthentic, experts said.
"A careful visual inspection reveals obvious structural inconsistencies with the iconic Hollywood sign, including differences in letter shape and surrounding structures," said Hany Farid, a media forensics expert at the University of California-Berkeley and the co-founder of GetReal Labs, in a statement (archived here).
Siwei Lyu, director of the Media Forensic Lab at the University at Buffalo, told AFP that in one of the images, the structural brackets behind the sign's letters are misaligned and misshapen compared with authentic photos of the landmark (archived here).
Screenshot from X taken January 9, 2025, with elements outlined by AFP
Lyu, who said his own deepfake detection algorithms determined the visuals were likely created using text-to-image AI programs such as Midjourney, Runway or Grok, pointed to similar inconsistencies in another video. He also noted that towers behind the sign were missing in the clip.
Screenshot from X taken January 9, 2025, with elements outlined by AFP
A third fake image bears a watermark for Grok, the AI chatbot affiliated with X, for example. The user who appears to have first posted it made clear in follow-up posts that it was created using AI.
Screenshot from X taken January 9, 2025, with elements outlined by AFP
Yet another fake was first posted by a TikTok user whose bio says he is an artist who makes "graphics" and "video scenes." An affiliated Paypal account says: "We create original music, graphics, and video scenes" (archived here).
The user deleted his original TikTok post sharing the video shortly after AFP reached out for comment.
In a fifth image, the sign is misspelled, with an extra "d" tacked on at the end of Hollywood. It also includes a Grok watermark.
Screenshot from X taken January 9, 2025, with elements outlined by AFP
In addition to fake images, AFP has also reported on false narratives about the fire.
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