AI-generated post about N.L. war hero is ‘fiction’

Absolutely atrocious. Biggest insult, I think, I've ever seen when it comes to the memory of one of our soldiers, especially during Remembrance Week. Just ahead of Remembrance Day, a post on Inuk war hero John Shywalk began making the rounds on Facebook. The problem with the post? The photo is fake and the account of his service is AI slop. In case you didn't know, Shywalk enlisted in 1915 in what would become known as the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. He earned a reputation as a top marksman and died fighting in France in 1917. Shywalk's real story is worth celebrating, but the story in the Facebook post is mostly made up. The entire post was fiction. They claimed that he was out ahead of the troops at Beaumont Hamel, sniping German officers. He wasn't even in France at the time. There was another one about how he was killed. Say he was hit by a sniper in the head. Reality is he was killed by an artillery shell. It's well known. Even on top of that, they used an AI-generated photograph of John Shywalk. Depicted him with a 1950s Royal Newfoundland Regiment shoulder epaulette, a Canadian forage cap in the front lines at Manier, a Second World War gun. Everything about it was just absolutely garbage. The post has been shared more than a thousand times. Some commenters clearly believe it's genuine, but others are calling out the AI-generated errors. Frank Gogas says we have to. These soldiers' stories should not be changed. It's their story. Why are we making things up? John Shywalk's story is heroic. Why do we have to have AI tell us it's something different? And if we don't nip it in the bud, or if we can't nip it in the bud, that's going to be John Shywalk's story in five years. If you want to learn about the real John Shywalk, Veterans Affairs Canada has his biography and real photos on their website.