The US government shutdown has officially reached a month in length, the second longest federal funding gap on record. That makes it a perfect storm for the chaos-fueled Trump administration, which now has a de facto kill switch that Elon Musk’s DOGE couldn’t even dream of.
As the shutdown drags on, it’s wreaking havoc on the nation, leaving millions of government workers without pay. As a consequence, the US is suffering issues like sporadic airport closures and massive delays in small business loan processing, issues which will surely have a negative impact on GDP growth.
One of the most pressing issues, however, is the shutdown’s effect on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps. The US Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program, had warned that the program’s 42 million recipients would likely go without starting on November 1 — though as of October 31, a judge blocked the White House from suspending the program.
Where the fight goes next is anyone’s guess, but the eruption of discourse about food stamps has been influenced by a disruptive new force: generative AI, and specifically OpenAI’s Sora 2, the video generation engine responsible for filling social media with incredibly realistic fake clips.
One clip clearly labeled with a Sora watermark nabbed nearly 500,000 views on TikTok alone. It shows a Black woman explaining to a local news reporter how she “sells” her government assistance for cash. “Imma keep it real with you, I get over $2,500 a month in stamps,” the AI-generated woman explains. “I sell ’em, $2,000 worth, for about $1,200-1,500 cash.”
“That’s why everybody’s upset,” she says. “Folks say we’re taking advantage, but that’s how we get by.”
Most social media users replying in the comments appear oblivious to the fact that it’s AI.
“This isnt [sic] about feeding their kids this about getting their hair and nails done,” one top comment read.
Even more troubling are those who realize it’s AI, but run with it anyway.
“That’s AI,” one commenter notes under a version of the same clip uploaded to YouTube. “But that is what is happening,” another replies. “Despite its fabrication, the clip highlights genuine SNAP trafficking issues that have long been existing in our society,” another caption of the same reel claims on Facebook.
On Elon Musk’s X-formerly-Twitter, the right-wing influencer Mila Joy shared the video uncritically to her 426,000 followers. “What an absolute SCAM,” Joy wrote. Though the video has since-been removed, it managed to receive over 1.7 million views, boosted by fellow right-wing accounts as well as X’s own summary tab of “Today’s News.”
In reality, data shows that food assistance fraud is incredibly rare. A 2024 analysis in Mississippi, for example, found that of the state’s 390,761 SNAP recipients, only 592 individuals were…
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