Thai media outlet The Nation alleged to have used AI manipulated image of ‘smiling’ Cambodian casualty
Doctored image from The Nation (l). Original image (r).
Thai media outlet The Nation appears to have been caught red-handed using an AI doctored image of a Cambodian citizen, wounded in the incident that left 1 Cambodian citizen dead and 3 wounded by Thai armed forces this week.
Fresh News reports that an image of a wounded Cambodian citizen (apparently sourced from the Facebook account of the ‘Army Military Force), used by The Nation in a report entitled ‘Army flags four suspicious points in Cambodia’s claim of civilian shooting’ has been doctored to make it look as though the Cambodian casualty, injured by Thai soldiers on November 12, 2025 in Prey Chan village, is smiling.
The report, which is currently blocked, like the entire Nation website, to Cambodian visitors – unlike Khmer Times, which is happy to have Thai readers – shows the image presented under a section entitled ‘Injuries shown in news footage do not match gunshot wounds‘ and states that ‘Winthai added that the injuries seen on patients sent to the hospital are inconsistent with actual gunshot wounds fired from military weapons at a distance of 500–800 metres. Such wounds should be severe and extensive, he said — yet the patients shown in reports appeared to have minor injuries and were even smiling, which is “not at all consistent with gunshot victims.”’
However, the original image of the casualty show that the man is not smiling as he lies in bed in pain with his eyes closed, following his shooting by Thai armed forces.
A check via the Decopy AI tool, detects a 59% chance that The Nation image has been generated by AI.
It is also noticeable that The Nation image shows the man’s skin as being unnaturally smooth – indicating that it has been doctored and altered – whereas the original image shows that the man has rough skin.
The man’s nose and mouth have also been elongated in The Nation’s picture, and a bulge added to his cheek (with an ‘aura’ round it), further confirming that the image has been doctored for propaganda purposes.
If The Nation’s post uses a doctored image, this would represent a serious breach of journalistic ethics at The Nation – which has already made a unforgiveable error in doubting that Thai armed forces were responsible for the death of a Cambodian citizen in the unprovoked incident of the 12th of November.
-Khmer Times-
Photo:
1- Doctored image from The Nation (l). Original image (r).
2- Doctored image used by The Nation
3- Screenshot of The Nation’s false allegations
4- Original image of a casualty from Prey Chan village, now in a Phnom Penh hospital.
