CBC is under fire after its ombudsman ruled the network exercised poor judgment when it published an AI-generated image depicting Prime Minister Mark Carney partying with Jeffrey Epstein in an online story about fake news.“Publishing such an image was risky business,” Ombudsman Maxime Bertrand wrote in a review released Tuesday. Bertrand said the fabricated nightclub photo — clearly labelled as fake — still created the potential for confusion and reputational harm during a federal election.“To see such a person laughing in a club alongside a Prime Minister in the midst of an election campaign is shocking indeed,” wrote Bertrand, adding that some viewers questioned whether the CBC had “lost their senses” or whether Carney “was associated with Epstein.” Bertrand said she received numerous complaints from the public.Blacklock's Reporter said the fake photo appeared April 13 in an online CBC article titled ChatGPT Now Lets Users Create Fake Images Of Politicians; We Stress Tested It. .CBC said it chose the particular prompt because it mirrored allegations circulating at the time.Basem Boshra, CBC’s senior director of journalistic standards, defended the decision, saying Carney had been repeatedly heckled during the campaign over supposed ties to Epstein. He argued the image illustrated how easily bad-faith actors can manufacture believable disinformation. “This was a timely and relevant example, not an exploitive one,” said Boshra.Carney addressed the heckling directly during an April 10 rally in Hamilton, where a man shouted at him asking whether he knew Epstein. .Carney dismissed it as part of a wave of conspiracy theories, hatred and online pollution “washing over our virtual borders from the United States.”Reuters previously published a March 26 fact check confirming there was “no evidence” Carney had ever been photographed with Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in police custody in 2019.Bertrand wrote that while CBC’s mock-up reflected a controversy already circulating online, it nonetheless risked creating “false equivalence or uneven reputational harm” in the middle of an election campaign.
