A 59-year-old Dutch politician was expelled from her party on March 30 after posting a heavily edited campaign photo.
No need to play the “7 differences game”. A 59-year-old Dutch politician is the subject of heated controversy after posting a heavily retouched campaign photo for local elections, apparently with the help of artificial intelligence. The local Leefbaar Rotterdam party announced on Tuesday March 31 that it would exclude the municipal councilor from its ranks.
Patricia Reichman was elected to the municipal council of the district of Blijdorp, Bergpolder and Liskwartier at the end of March, but quickly attracted attention when voters noticed a striking difference between two of her photos, says the Dutch press. An image that she had posted for campaigning on social networks made her appear significantly younger than in the official photo of the list of local candidates. His eyes aren’t even the same color in both pictures.
The Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD) investigated and questioned the person concerned, who defended herself: “A photo published in the local newspaper had too low a resolution, so I processed it with online software to increase the resolution.”. Patricia Reichmann also argued that she usually appeared “younger than his age”but that his appearance had recently been altered due to drug treatment.
Wrong address
The AD media investigation also revealed that the fifty-year-old candidate did not live in the district for which she had just been elected.
These revelations pushed his party to exclude him. Leefbaar Rotterdam justifies, in a press release: “During the application process and during interviews conducted following this article, this neighborhood council candidate repeatedly claimed to reside in the Blijdorp district. The investigation of theAD reveals, however, that this is not the case: she actually resides in another neighborhood.”
Regarding the cliché, which caused a lot of reaction from Dutch Internet users on “The photo has clearly been heavily edited using AI and is not a realistic representation.”
“Given her housing situation and the controversy sparked by the photo, we asked the candidate to give up her seat and return it to the party. She did not respond to this request »continues the party based in the eponymous city in the Netherlands. And to conclude: “We have therefore proceeded to exclude her, because she can no longer occupy her seat on behalf of Leefbaar Rotterdam.”
