Even if you believe that the Princess of Wales’s cancer-announcement video was above-board, surely you also believe that Kensington Palace and the BBC should be doing more to establish the video’s credibility? That was the whole point of KP bringing in BBC Studios to film the video – BBC Studios was clearly lending authenticity to a credibility-challenged palace, a palace which was deeply mired in controversy after several deeply questionable manipulated photos, not to mention the weirdness of all of those “Kate sightings.” Last week, the Washington Post finally got KP on the record about the deepfake allegations, specifically with regards to the cancer announcement video. KP’s response was that the accusations of AI tampering are “factually inaccurate.” The BBC remains squirrelly, refusing to say anything more than yes, they filmed it. One AI expert contacted by WaPo, Deep Media, said that they feel that there’s a “high likelihood” that Kate’s face and voice were AI-manipulated in the video, but other AI experts shrugged off the AI accusations. Well, now Getty Images has added an editor’s note to their screencaps from the video:
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This Handout image was provided by a third-party organization and may not adhere to Getty Images’ editorial policy.) In this handout provided by Kensington Palace, Catherine, The Princess of Wales is seen in a recorded, personal video message, providing an update on her health, recorded on March 20, 2024 in Windsor and aired on March 22, 2024 in London, England. The Princess of Wales had abdominal surgery earlier this year and has revealed that cancer has subsequently been found. She said she has been receiving chemotherapy and asked for privacy for her and her family. (Photo by BBC Studios/Kensington Palace via Getty Images)
I’ll admit that I didn’t think to check Getty Images before now, so I don’t know if the Editor’s Note has always been there (since Friday March 22) or whether it was added later. While it’s a straight acknowledgement that the pic is just a screencap from a palace-released video, this is the same kind of disclaimer Getty has added to other manipulated palace-released photos, like the KP-released photo of Queen Elizabeth II with her white grandchildren, allegedly “taken by Kate.”
Heavy.com did a deeper dive into Getty’s editorial policy and when and how they might add these kinds of disclaimers. I did a simple search on Getty Images for “This Handout image was provided by a third-party organization and may not adhere to Getty Images’ editorial policy” and the only other photos with that note are from NASA handouts. Again… KP wants to continue to behave as if they weren’t caught manipulating photos, and they’re doing next to nothing to re-establish credibility with a general public looking for conspiracies.
Getty Images have placed an editor’s note on the video of Kate Middleton where she reveals she has cancer.
The note states the footage ‘might not adhere to its editorial policy’ .
Why on earth have they done this? https://t.co/5RHZ1epVOr pic.twitter.com/Dhi95GL8EQ
— Lorraine King (@lorrainemking) April 1, 2024
Screencaps courtesy of Kensington Palace’s video.