Fake police and public safety posts are spreading in San Diego

San Diego was recently hit with flooding — but not all the images circulating on social media are what they appear to be.

During a morning scroll, I found about five fake flooding posts for San Diego, all coming from random accounts on social media. While the region did see real flooding, not all of the images being shared were recent. Some posts used AI-generated content, while others relied on old footage taken years ago.

It's a trend San Diego police are also noticing.

We have noticed an increase in social media accounts that publish quick snippets of video, information they've heard, or things they have seen on other accounts," Ashley Nicholes, the Communications Manager for SDPD said in a statement. "It can be challenging as a public safety agency to continually monitor and correct this type of false information."

To be clear, many social media accounts do verify and put out good, timely information. SDPD admitted the same.