In June 2024, images of a rare variety of pink dolphins were dispersed on the Internet. We decided to check if these personnel are real.
Photos of mammals of unusual color published Entertaining And Information Portals, users of social networks (""VKontakte" Facebook*, Instagram*, X) And Platform blog. Pictures diverged by popular Telegram channels: ""The first folk"(92,000 views at the time of writing this analysis),"Militarist"(91 000),"Urgently. Now"(44,000) and others. Some posts contain only one image, in others there are two more pictures of the same dolphin from other angles. The places where the photographs were allegedly taken is leaving one publication to another, among the options - the coast Bulgaria, USA And Thailand.

Pink dolphins are really found in nature. For example, such an unusual color occurs in Amazonsky river dolphin, which lives in the pools of the Amazon and Orinoko, and Indotihocean Gorbatny dolphin. However, the skin of these animals does not have such a bright and uniform color as in viral images, we are talking only about a pinkish tint. In any of any authoritative source “verified” it was not possible to detect images of dolphins with the skin of such a saturated pink color. Pale pink color characteristic Also for Delphin-albinos, however, in this case, the shade is not so intense - blood vessels shine through the skin, which are simply not able to give it such a bright color, through the pigment.


Judging by the results of the reverse search by images using the Tineye service, the earliest available publication containing viral photos - fast dated June 19, 2024, which placed on a platform for storing and exchanging images IMGUR User Lassannn. The heading of the publication reads: "A rare pink dolphin is seen off the coast of North Carolina." However, in the comments, other users of the platform doubted the veracity of the pictures, suspecting the result of the use of neural networks in them.
To verify this hypothesis, "tested" used the service Hive Ai Detectorwho determines whether the images were generated by artificial intelligence. The analysis showed: in the case of three pictures with a pink dolphin, the probability of this varies from 82.2% to 96.7%.
It is noteworthy that these are not the only pictures of the pink dolphin allegedly noticed off the coast of North Carolina, which dispersed over the network in mid -June 2024. In the English -language segment of the Internet, several more images of the mammal lying on the beach were no less popular.

Photos dismantled the factor of the project Snopes. They came to the conclusion that these images are generated by artificial intelligence, and found their author. It turned out to be a user Facebook Alex Lex - Judging by his last posts, he also created the pictures we check. The original post could not be detected (probably the user deleted it). However, June 21 Alex Lex Published The screenshots of several news sites that shared “checked” with pictures were shared, and wrote: “My dolphin is famous around the world: Indian, Philippine, Singapore news this morning.” Two days earlier he Ironized: “People are like:“ You need to be very stupid to believe in this jesky shit. ”And two days later:“ Wow, a lovely pink dolphin! ”. ”The user and previously laid out the images generated by AI on his page, but they did not cause such resonance.
Thus, although in nature dolphins with a pale pink color are really found, viral images are generated using a neural network. Moreover, the author made much more pictures with unusual animals, but in the Russian -speaking segment of the Internet only three of them parted.
*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns social networks Facebook and Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Photo on the cover: social networks
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