8 mo. ago • 91%

Photo agencies are refusing to publish a portrait of Kate Middleton with her children over concerns it was manipulated

www.businessinsider.com Photo agencies are refusing to publish a portrait of Kate Middleton with her children over concerns it was manipulated

Multiple photo agencies are sounding the alarm that Kate Middleton's latest portrait with her children could have been digitally altered.

The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse all released kill notifications to media outlets over the photo — released by Kensington Palace on Sunday — announcing that they would no longer be distributing the image.

The AP wrote, "it appears that the source has manipulated the image." AFP cited an "editorial issue," while Reuters said the photo was withdrawn after a "post-publication review."

Following its release, social media was abuzz with sleuths questioning whether the photo was photoshopped or AI-generated. Many were focused on the cuff of Princess Charlotte's pink cardigan, which appears to disappear in the photo.

Other users pointed out that Middleton was not wearing her wedding ring.

"no rings, kids all have their fingers crossed, weird blurring on charlotte's cuffs, leaves on the trees despite it being early mach - i'm sorry but they're just asking for us to go full katespiracy at this point," one user on X wrote.

96 comments

Okay, I thought the conspiracy theories were kinda silly at first. But now, even though I don't care about Kate Middleton or any of the royal family, I gotta admit I'm kinda curious now.

89
- There is nothing to the conspiracy theories, she's had abdominal surgery and wants to keep her health problems private. The UK press are intrusive and horrible, and the social media conspiracy theories are just gossiping.
  
  There are plenty of operations that would need a couple weeks of hospital recovery and about 6 weeks recovery at hone (Easter is only the end of March). People speculating are ignorant about basic medical matters and can't let someone have their privacy. There is no conspiracy.
  
  48
  
  Is it really that difficult to just not post a picture then? I mean, I've managed to go 40 years without posting any pictures to social media, and I'm not even a princess.
  
  2
  
  She had a breakdown, that's what's being hid.
  
  -14
- Yeah, this is getting pretty weird.
  
  24
How are they so bad at this?!

49
- It's so bad it's like they're trying to inflate the attention on the royal family. I can't think of what they would gain from this type of attention, though... Other than to keep them relevant in the minds of the public and media, in the cheapest way possible?
  
  40
  
  I think they were trying to shut down the rumour mill as to why Kate hasn't been seen in months. Probably figured releasing a "photo" would do the trick. Little did they know there's a worldwide network of researchers checking photos for just this kind of thing.
  
  Palace staff f'ed up.
  
  40
What's happening? I don't keep up on British conspiracy theories.

39
- From reading the article, she hasn't been seen since Christmas and there were theories that she was in a coma or something.
  
  Then a photo of her gets finally released, and it appears to be digitally pieced together.
  
  62
  
  The kids have also not been seen afaik and are not attending school.
  
  9
Look at the boys hand on the left too.

37
- I’ve seen Dune 2, this is just him telling the housekeeper to bring more biscuits.
  
  42
  
  the voice BRING ME MORE TEA
  
  9
- Little over-energetic kids do weird finger stuff sometimes when trying to hold still. But the older two also, it does look like something kids might do to protest a sham picture that lies about their mum. The lack of a wedding ring also feels significant.
  
  41
  
  I'm an adult and I still do weird stuff with my fingers. I absolutely cross my fingers like that.
  
  conspiracy theorists gonna conspiracy I guess
  
  24
  
  Yeah, but the ring finger is all wrong. Its base doesn't line up with the rest of it.
  
  5
- It is more subtle, but it looks like both of the other two children are crossing fingers as well. The boy in the middle seems to possibly be crossing his middle and ring fingers on his left hand and the girl is definitely crossing the same two fingers on her right hand. And Kate's blurry hand on the kid's waist makes little sense when nothing around it is motion blurred, unless, I guess, maybe she was yanking it away at the moment the photo was taken? But it seems like if that was the case the wrinkle/ fold in his shirt right in front of her hand would be moving too and not be as crisp as it is.
  
  13
  
  The common denominator is the ring finger, and she's not wearing her ring.
  
  If I may put on mg tinfoil hat for a moment, those kids are obviously trying to tell everyone the person in the photo is not their mother, and is in fact a cloud person from Alpha Centauri.
  
  9
  
  The only true giveaway is the girl's left sleeve (our right) which has some erased parts (where it meets the hand). Everything else might be weird but no way to confirm, however that sleeve is 100% edited no doubt.
  
  2
- Not sure where you found this photo, I clicked a bunch of the links looking for the full photo and gave up. I did notice that only the kid closest to the window actually has a reflection though.
  
  3
  
  Maybe we can solve this like when Reddit solved the Boston Marathon bombing
  
  10
  
  Trueblood Royals don't have reflections. That kid is the new Harry.
  
  6
  
  Its in the linked article near the bottom in a twitter embed. https://x.com/bencsmoke/status/1766838218425544804?s=46&t=Za25Alq_B_cAQOySmPLDCg
  
  4
  
  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/10/first-post-op-photo-of-princess-of-wales-withdrawn-due-to-manipulation
  
  1
This is Business Insider's front page right now including this story on the right (which it is also complaining about on the left). It's really weird. Who exactly are they trying to appeal to, bankers who read the National Inquirer?

32
- What a fucking tabloid mess.
  
  18
  
  But a really weird one, right?
  
  Like you wouldn't expect a tabloid to have a bunch of financial news and you wouldn't expect a financial news source to have a bunch of tabloid stuff.
  
  They're a big company. They must have market research people. So what is the demographic they've found that makes this make sense?
  
  11
- Perhaps the customers are CEOs of AI companies who might want to sell the royals better deepfake technology?
  
  7
If you look at the picture the photo shopping is fairly obvious, ignoring all the other nonsense being thrown in.

The guardian has a zoomed up view of the area and it's pretty crude photoshopping. It's more than blurring.

I get why news agencies are withdrawing it when they have policies against manipulation beyond anything simple like removing dust specks.

30
I hate when there are leaves on the tres in early mach.

23
- Definitely won't last through Mach 3
  
  18
  
  The sequel will be great though, Mach 4: Mach ado about nothing
  
  6
- Are y'all referring to a specific location? There's trees with leaves all over the place where I am. Am I missing something?
  
  1
Maybe it’s real, maybe it’s not, photography/photoshop etc aren’t my thing but maybe she really did have surgery not that long ago and wants to be left alone while she recovers? I feel like if she was dead we would know because that would be its own huge thing, so, just let the poor woman deal with whatever it is she’s going through.

22
- They take quite a lot of money from the British public (taxes, not donations. They = British royal family). Part of the cost of that is being in the public eye. If she really thought royals deserved privacy I'm sure she would have said something when Meghan was being destroyed by the media.
  
  https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/meghan-markle-kate-middleton-double-standards-royal
  
  23
  
  Yeah I get that but at the end of the day she’s still just human. And what they did to Meghan was very fucked up and she most definitely didn’t deserve it.
  
  7
who?

17
- She's the younger sibling of Kate Upton
  
  28
  
  Who?
  
  12
  
  I’m just waiting to see what Kate Lowerton has to say about all this.
  
  12
- Unimportant British royal who will eventually be queen if the stories have no weight
  
  12
I looked at this and at first it looked fine, then I started seeing one uncanny after another. Wtf

16
Oh no! Anyway....

16
Another distraction from the fact that capitalism is destroying the planet.

13
What's wrong with them shopping an image?

Like what if the image they wanted to share was an oil painting? Would that be wrong? Even if being a painting meant that it may not in fact be an accurate portrayal?

11
- It has been photoshopped more than these agencies allow, and the reason people are interested is because there is a lot of speculation right now about where Kate Middleton actually is.
  
  40
  
  I think more specifically they're OK with edited images, but it must be declared that the image was edited. The assumption without that declaration is that the image is not edited, aside from composition changes perhaps (cropping, lighting, noise reduction etc).
  
  15
  
  Kate Middleton is missing?
  
  5
This article would've made some great science fiction 20 or so years ago.

8
I don't understand what would be photoshopped in that part of the image though. it's too far down to be Kate's hand, and if the kid was photoshopped in, why is her dress underneath showing through? The shop could only be concealing something ON the kid, right?

My guess is she was holding a doll or something and that's what was manipulated out

I'm also not actually following any of this this though. Anybody got a TL;DR in what the conspiracy theorists are claiming?

4
- She, the Princess of Wales, went missing following a surgery at the beginning of the year. The most prevalent claim is that there was a complication with the surgery and may be in a coma or worse.
  
  The idea is that telltale signs of the photo being altered would imply the family is hiding her condition and released a fake photo to buy time
  
  12
  
  The thing I don’t get is why hide it at all. “She’s recovering. That’s all you get to know.” Is going to attract the same attention as trying to hide it, while telling sane people to fuck off.
  
  Unless they offed her. But uh, we won’t go there.
  
  12
- I don't see anything in these photos that warrants an article. Seems like another lame click-bait conspiracy, probably cooked up by tabloids or the equally brain-damaged: "But where's Kate?!1" Even The Verge has an article, JFC.
  
  Social media will continue to fuel endless garbage from the minds of who-the-fuck-knows and literally insane people. Can't wait for AI to turborcharge humanity's decent into madness.
  
  1
It looks like they used AI to generate a photo and then clumsily tried to clean up the artifacts in photoshop.

1
Her knees also look a bit odd as well. I know they get cut off, but just the way they come to the end of the photo, I can’t imagine how else they continue like that. Unless they’re just at an odd angle, they look really weird.

0
- Fwiw, this article has a version that's less cropped...
  
  https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/royals/breaking-kate-middleton-shares-brand-32289601.amp
  
  6
  
  That same pic is in the article. You just have to scroll down and wait for the X-formerly-Twitter link to load.
  
  3
  
  The boys hand in that photo is from shitty ai. If that image’s source was from some official press outlet, they’re failing at their jobs.
  
  -4
I have the strong feeling that this is purely sourced from more racism.

-6

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