The Synthetic Media Shift: Tracking the Rise, Virality, and Detectability of AI-Generated Multimodal Misinformation

Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 15 Apr 2026] The Synthetic Media Shift: Tracking the Rise, Virality, and Detectability of AI-Generated Multimodal Misinformation Zacharias Chrysidis, Stefanos-Iordanis Papadopoulos, Symeon Papadopoulos As generative AI advances, the distinction between authentic and synthetic media is increasingly blurred, challenging the integrity of online information. In this study, we present CONVEX, a large-scale dataset of multimodal misinformation involving miscaptioned, edited, and AI-generated visual content, comprising over 150K multimodal posts with associated notes and engagement metrics from X's Community Notes. We analyze how multimodal misinformation evolves in terms of virality, engagement, and consensus dynamics, with a focus on synthetic media. Our results show that while AI-generated content achieves disproportionate virality, its spread is driven primarily by passive engagement rather than active discourse. Despite slower initial reporting, AI-generated content reaches community consensus more quickly once flagged. Moreover, our evaluation of specialized detectors and vision-language models reveals a consistent decline in performance over time in distinguishing synthetic from authentic images as generative models evolve. These findings highlight the need for continuous monitoring and adaptive strategies in the rapidly evolving digital information environment. Subjects: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Multimedia (cs.MM) Cite as: arXiv:2604.15372 [cs.CR]   (or arXiv:2604.15372v1 [cs.CR] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.15372 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Zacharias Chrysidis [view email] [v1] Wed, 15 Apr 2026 14:12:00 UTC (7,152 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.CR < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: cs cs.AI cs.MM References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)