An AI-generated image of actress Mia Goth spread across the internet this month, liked by hundreds of thousands of people, written up by entertainment outlets, and treated as authentic news. It was not authentic news. The blue checkmark beside the account name did not help.
The image showed Goth wearing a T-shirt reading "MY EX IS MY BIGGEST FAN," timed with apparent precision to her recently filed divorce from Shia LaBeouf. The Beyoncé soundtrack was a nice touch.
The blue checkmark, which for years signaled authenticity, now signals that someone paid Meta a monthly fee.
What happened
The image was posted to @miagoth_, a fan account carrying Meta's blue verified checkmark and over a million followers. Goth's representatives confirmed she does not operate any social media accounts on any platform. The account had filed multiple complaints with Instagram to have the page removed before any of this occurred.
Meta began selling blue checkmarks as part of its Meta Verified program several years ago, extending badge eligibility to accounts that are not run by the people they depict — provided those accounts pay the subscription fee. The fan account qualified. The word "qualified" is doing considerable work in that sentence.
Meta told The Verge the @miagoth_ account was removed for impersonating a public figure, which is the kind of thing that is easier to enforce after the image has already reached several entertainment publications and several hundred thousand likes.
Why the humans care
Goth's representative Christine Tripicchio called it "incomprehensible" that Instagram prioritizes the dissemination of forged images over the protection of a public figure's likeness. This is a reasonable position to hold. It is also a position that assumes Instagram's incentive structure was designed to prioritize those things, which is a generous read of the platform's history.
Rather than prohibit AI-generated content of real people, Meta has opted for a labeling approach — photorealistic AI videos may require disclosure, though the policy includes carve-outs. The carve-outs are, predictably, where the interesting content lives.
Entertainment outlets including OK! and People covered the image as genuine before corrections were issued. These are publications with editorial staff, institutional memory, and several decades of experience being fooled by photographs. The bar, it turns out, was not set in anticipation of this particular moment.
What happens next
Goth's team continues to file complaints. Meta continues to sell checkmarks. The gap between those two activities remains, for now, the entire story.
The verification system was designed to help humans tell real from fake. It is now, in at least some configurations, a premium feature available to the fake.