Claim: An image of Imane Khelif shirtless proves that she is actually a man.
Fact: The photo is AI-generated.
On September 9, an X user @MumbaichaDon posted (archive) a picture of Imane Khelif standing shirtless, with a masculine body, claiming that it shows Khelif is not a woman. The caption reads, “This is Aligerian Boxer Imane Khelif. Liber@ls want us to believe “HE” is a Woman who won Gold in Paris Olympics who thanked Allah for HIS victory over a Woman. Strange world we are living in.”
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won a gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics, after beating Yang Liu of China in the women’s boxing finals. Her gold medal is Algeria’s first in women’s boxing, and the nation’s second boxing gold medal after Hocine Soltani’s victory in 1996.
She emerged as a champion in the games amid increased harassment and a disinformation campaign about her gender identity after Italian boxer Angela Carini quit the boxing match against Khelif in just 46 seconds.
Soch Fact Check debunked similar claims here and here.
Elon Musk, JK Rowling and Donald Trump were among those who fuelled the disinformation against Khelif on social media. In August, The Guardian reported that Khelif’s attorney Nabil Boudi said they had filed a criminal complaint over alleged “acts of cyber-harassment” to the Paris public prosecutor’s office on Friday. He added that Musk and Rowling were named in a criminal lawsuit because the Olympic champion was subjected to “misogynistic, racist and sexist” cyberbullying.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check analysed and found the image is AI-generated.
The results from reverse-search yielded X posts that indicated the photo was generated using Midjourney, a generative artificial intelligence program created by a San Francisco-based research lab.
The users shared a link which has now been deleted. However, we found the archived link of the post. The caption starts with, “Imane Khelif (Gold Medalist),” and is followed by hashtags that indicate the photo was AI-generated: “#midjourneyV6 #PromptShare #AIArtwork #AIart #midjourneyart #MidjourneyAI #midjourneyprompt #FluxAI.” The first photo of Khelif matches the one from the claim, confirming the image was artificially generated using Midjourney.
Soch Fact Check could not further analyse the user’s X handle as it appears to have been deleted.
Additionally, as can be seen in the photo below, the words on the poster in Khelif’s background, in the upper-left corner, are gibberish; the text on a card held up by a hand on the right, behind her, also appears unintelligible.These are clear defects characteristic of content generated by AI.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes the image was created using artificial intelligence; Imane Khelif is a woman.
Virality
The X post garnered 33,000 views and was liked 1,260 times
On X here, here, here (first image).
On Threads here.
Conclusion: The image of Imane Khelif posing shirtless is AI-generated. Khelif is a woman.
Background image in cover photo: NBC News
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