Wall Street falls briefly after a false image of smoke in the Pentagon circulated in networks

Wall Street It fell briefly this Monday morning after false news about an explosion at the Pentagon circulated on several Twitter accounts, including that of a Russian media outlet with millions of followers, which was later denied by the authorities.

The false news, published by a user on that social network and shared by the Russian media account RT -which later deleted it-, among others, included an image that could have been generated by artificial intelligence and that showed a column of smoke in the vicinity of the Pentagon.

Before the Department of Defense and the Arlington, Virginia, fire department disproved that claim, the image went viral enough to spook Wall Street, where the S&P index fell about 0.26% in minutes, according to the report. economic medium Business Insider.

“We can confirm that this was fake news and that the Pentagon was not attacked today.”a Pentagon spokesman told the media.

“There is NO explosion or incident taking place on or near the Pentagon reservation, and there are no immediate dangers or risks to the public.”said the firefighters on their Twitter account.

Shortly after the denials, Wall Street quickly rebounded from that brief negative span, which nonetheless brought billions of dollars into the market.

The circulation of false news on Twitter, a social network that has opened its conditions to obtain a verification seal to any user who pays for it, and its impact on the stock market, have reopened the debate on the limits and the need to regulate the artificial intelligence, although it is not entirely clear if the image was generated by AI.