You may have seen an image on social media of a beluga whale jumping over an enclosure back into the sea. The photo is accompanied by an inspiring story about a Cook Inlet beluga mother escaping from a research facility in Seward to reunite with her young calf.
The picture and subsequent story have been shared on multiple social media pages, with one post on Instagram gaining close to 6 million views.
But both the story and the photo are false.
The Alaska SeaLife Center, the only research facility with a public aquarium in Seward, confirmed late last month that it didn’t happen. And that the photo was likely generated using artificial intelligence.
“When misinformation like this story gets passed around, obviously that's a concern for us,” said Kaiti Grant, communications manager for the center. “Because the story isn't what's really happening.”
In an age of increasingly realistic AI, discerning what is real and what is not is harder than ever. For organizations like the SeaLife Center, misinformation can damage reputation and credibility, ultimately impacting research done at the center.
No belugas have ever escaped
Grant said that in the SeaLife Center’s 25-year history, a beluga whale has never escaped from the center and it’s not a scenario that could happen.
Grant said that the nonprofit organization takes pride in being transparent with its work, from research projects to wildlife rehabilitation and education. She said that, outside of grants, most of the funding for the center comes from supporters, and that misinformation could impact donor opinions.
“The bigger picture is misinformation really does shadow the important work that is being done,” Grant said.
Despite not being named in the post, Grant said the SeaLife Center received multiple calls shortly after the post began to spread. She said she appreciated people calling, and that it gave the center an opportunity to speak to the work that it has done with beluga whales.
Fighting back against fake stories
AI-generated content has become quite popular on social media, said Yong Cao, a Professor of Marketing at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He said that even though some accounts know they’re posting misinformation, they still choose to share it for various reasons.
Cao said that many brands and organizations are negatively impacted when misinformation spreads on social media. He now teaches his marketing students at UAA how to effectively address rumors and fake information from a business standpoint.
He said organizations have the option to take legal action, but that can be costly and time-consuming. Cao said that the SeaLife Center did the right thing by releasing an official statement.
Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have a responsibility to stop the spread of harmful misinformation, Cao said.
However, some of the safeguards on misinformation aren’t clear, and social media users are still responsible for the content they share and believe, he said.
“For the consumers, many consumers, they have very limited knowledge on how to identify whether something is real, or something false,” Cao said.
Momentum fades, but the story lingers
Since the SeaLife Center responded, some of the beluga posts are accompanied by an alert stating the AI-generated story and photo are fake. The center has also noticed shares and likes on the story have lost momentum since the statement, Grant said.
Grant has a theory about why the fake story popped up when it did. Days before it came out, a dead whale was found on the bow of a cruise ship that docked in Seward.
“I think if I was a site that was trying to get more eyes on a post for whatever reason, that might encourage them to do that, that having a story with the word whale and Seward and Alaska in it isn't a bad idea,” Grant said.
Although the story of the beluga escapee is no longer trending, it continues to be posted and shared by page owners that primarily post AI-generated content.
When Alaska Public Media asked one page owner, under the handle SweetDecember09, whether the image and story were true, they maintained that both were.
“It’s a true story. If you love the content you can gift the content,” they wrote.
As of Wednesday, the profile has been disabled. Instagram disables accounts when the user is found violating community guidelines.
Grant said it’s getting harder to tell what's fake and what's real online, and that being cautious about who you follow and the information you choose to believe and share is important.
“We take a lot of pride in transparency, but not all pages do the same thing,” Grant said. “So just check your sources, and make sure that it's coming from a reliable source.”
