AI-Generated Anti-ICE Videos Are Getting the Fanfic Treatment

"At first glance, the scuffle in the video seems shocking. A New York City school principal, waving a bat, stops masked ICE agents from trying to enter the building, and instead of violence, the encounter erupts with cheers from onlookers. "Let me show you why they call me bat girl," she says to them. In other clips like it, a server flings a bowl of hot noodles at two officers dining at a Chinese restaurant, and a shop owner flexes her Fourth Amendment rights."

"The videos, equal parts tense and bombastic, are also clearly AI-generated. They are part of a constellation of anti-ICE AI content that is spreading across social media as the federal occupation of Minneapolis-part of the Trump administration's attack on immigrants-has resulted in agents killing two US citizens in January. Both Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old US Department of Veterans Affairs ICU nurse, were unarmed when they were fatally shot by government officials."

"In America, the role of fantasy -the act of imagining a better world and putting action behind it to make it true-is paramount during times of political unrest. The videos, which have millions of views on Facebook and Instagram, offer a blend of revisionist justice that imagines a digital multiverse where the ICE agents are just like us: not above the rule of law."

AI-generated videos depict staged, nonviolent confrontations with ICE agents, including a principal wielding a bat, a server flinging noodles, and a shop owner asserting Fourth Amendment rights. The clips have millions of views on Facebook and Instagram and form part of a wider anti-ICE content trend circulating online. The spread of these videos coincides with federal actions in Minneapolis and the fatal shootings of two unarmed US citizens by government agents. Creators use AI as an expressive tool that echoes social media’s role in giving voice to those excluded from traditional channels, enabling revisionist justice and emotional resistance.

Read at WIRED