Mogadishu (PP News Desk) — Shortly after Somalia’s bicameral legislature voted on amendments to the Provisional Constitution, allegations of fraudulent voting began to circulate. The anti-amendment camp claimed that Sheikh Bashir Salad and Sheikh Ali Wajis, members of the Somali Religious Council, had voted in favour of the amendments.
An investigation by theBBC Somali Service found that photographs appearing to show the sheikhs raising their hands during the vote were AI-generated. A reporter from the BBC Somali Service used AI-detection technology to examine the images and concluded that they contained digital watermarks indicating synthetic generation.
Visual inconsistencies further undermined the image’s authenticity. In the fabricated photo, two men appear seated behind the sheikhs. In authentic photographs taken inside the The Federal Parliament of Somalia chamber on the day of the vote, two women were seated behind them. The seating arrangement of the parliamentary chamber and other photographs from the session corroborated the BBC’s findings.
Somalia’s digital media landscape has become increasingly saturated with deepfake images created using artificial intelligence. The longstanding problem of fake news is now compounded by manipulated visuals that many people struggle to identify without stronger digital literacy in the AI era.
“The BBC Somali Service investigation underscores that vigilance remains the strongest defence against disinformation and misinformation,” a journalist in Mogadishu told Puntland Post.
© Puntland Post, 2026