在2026年1月3日凌晨（周六）川普宣布美军已在委内瑞拉逮捕总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗及其妻子后，数分钟内，TikTok、Instagram与X迅速被假讯息淹没：有人转传旧影片假称是加拉加斯遭袭，也有人散播看似AI生成的逮捕影像与影片以博取互动与追踪。

数小时后，美国司法部长帕姆·邦迪宣布，马杜罗夫妇在纽约南区被起诉，指控包含「毒品恐怖主义」阴谋、可卡因输入阴谋，以及持有机枪与破坏性装置等多项罪名。与此同时，WIRED利用Google DeepMind的SynthID判定一张「两名DEA探员夹著马杜罗」的热门图片很可能是伪造，并指出有看不见的水印讯号。

平台层面的纠错与管制显得迟缓且混乱：Grok虽承认图片为假，却错指其改编自2017年墨西哥毒枭被捕照；ChatGPT先前甚至强烈否认「马杜罗已被捕」。在扩散上，TikTok上多支疑似AI影片在数小时内累积「数十万」观看；一位创作者的Instagram原始贴文约1.2万次观看；X上另有一则错用旧素材的影片突破200万次观看且在刊出时仍未下架。

Minutes after Donald Trump announced in the early hours of Saturday, January 3, 2026, that US troops had captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, disinformation surged across TikTok, Instagram, and X. Users recycled old clips as “Caracas attacks” and posted AI-made images and videos purporting to show DEA or other officers arresting Maduro, exploiting loosened moderation to chase engagement.

Hours later, US attorney general Pam Bondi said Maduro and Cilia Flores were indicted in the Southern District of New York on charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons-related conspiracies involving machine guns and destructive devices. WIRED used Google DeepMind’s SynthID to flag a widely shared “DEA agents flanking Maduro” image as likely AI-generated or edited, citing an embedded, invisible watermark signal.

Correction efforts were inconsistent: X’s Grok agreed the image was fake but misattributed it to a 2017 arrest photo, while WIRED noted ChatGPT earlier strongly denied Maduro’s capture. Quantitatively, TikTok AI-style videos drew “hundreds of thousands” of views within hours; an Instagram source post surpassed about 12,000 views; and an X post using November 2025 footage amassed over 2 million views and was still up at publication.