Jesus shrimp
Strange images generated by artificial intelligence are flooding Facebook as bots and compromise hackers run wild on the social media platform, spawning a meme-worthy image that has been dubbed the 'Jesus Prawn'.
What is 'Jesús Gamba'?
“Jesús Gamba” is a surreal, often disturbing depiction of Jesus Christ fused with sea creatures such as crabs and shrimps.
These images are generated by AI, an offshoot of the flood of AI-generated spam that has recently spread across Facebook as a form of compromise hacking.
While most of these images feature more traditional depictions of Jesus, “Jesús Gamba” has drawn more attention to the phenomenon, causing puzzled answers from online commenters.
Why are AI-generated images like “Jesús Gamba” spreading on Facebook?
Young Internet users have grown up in the age of disinformation and witnessed the rise of AI-generated images; many have adapted by learning to spot the tracks.
Older people generally find AI-generated images more difficult to recognize: telltale signs like twisted limbs and disfigured hands aren't always present in the output of popular image generators like Midjourney.
As younger internet users flocked to TikTok, Instagram and X (Twitter), older people stayed on Facebook. So Facebook is constantly being flooded with AI-generated garbage posted by spammy accounts trying to maximize engagement, by whatever means necessary.
A Stanford Internet Observatory study tracking the phenomenon argued that these spam accounts increase their engagement, algorithmic reach and credibility by buying masses of bot followers.
The goal is to push these AI-generated images onto the timelines of as many real Facebook users as possible, potentially redirecting them to content farms and other low-quality sites.
This has led to a rise in fake “feel-good” stories, accompanied by AI-generated images of grandmothers celebrating their birthdays, or children next to elaborate sculptures they supposedly carved or assembled by hand.
This phenomenon has been widely discussed on more media-literate platforms, with commentators both amused and concerned about the trend.
A recent investigation by 404Media found that AI-generated images were being sent to unsuspecting users via Facebook's “Suggested For You” recommendation engine, implemented in 2022.
Going back a little further, to 2018, Facebook appears to have laid the groundwork for the current tsunami of AI-generated pollution, as the social media platform expressly stopped prioritizing content published by brands and media .
“We feel a responsibility to make sure our services are not only fun to use, but also good for people's well-being,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post announcing the change.
At the time, Zuckerberg sounded optimistic, adding that the change “should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”
Ironically, the algorithmic change encouraged the opposite, resulting in groups of bots commenting on strange AI-created images, the theory of the dead internet coming to life before our eyes.
The age of AI-generated spam has arrived and it looks like “Jesus Shrimp”.
