Media Alert: The Hollywood Sign is Not On Fire, Despite Online Visuals

GetReal Labs has identified a number of fabricated images and videos falsely portraying the Hollywood sign engulfed in flames. These AI-generated fakes are rapidly circulating across multiple social media platforms.

“As generative AI continues to improve in its ability to create high realistic content, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. This problem is exacerbated by the speed at which false rumors spread online with, in some cases, deadly consequences. Our analysis confirms these images are fake, and a careful visual inspection reveals obvious structural inconsistencies with the iconic Hollywood sign, including differences in letter shape and surrounding structures.” — Hany Farid, Co-founder and Chief Scientist of GetReal

We will continue to see an increasing number of hyper realistic fakes flood the space during break news events because these tools are increasingly available and easy to use. The generated fakes we are seeing this time around are more advanced than those we saw during Hurricane Helene, and we are seeing more visually compelling videos like one that mimics a helicopter camera operator.

Using GRL’s advanced forensic tools to detect manipulation and AI-generated content, combined with our team’s deep expertise, we conducted a thorough analysis to expose these deceptive materials.

One of the first fake images we found was posted as early as January 7 on X. One of the more widespread videos seems to have first appeared on a TikTok with a history of posting digitally fabricated art. The user has since deleted the post but it's already spread across various platforms.

In addition to some of the visual inconsistencies highlighted by Hany Farid, some images are clearly watermarked as coming from an AI tool.