WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Screenshots show news headlines detailing allegations involving Australian Greens senator Jordon Steele-John.
OUR VERDICT
False. The headlines have been fabricated using artificial intelligence and the news outlets did not report these details.
AAP FACTCHECK - Screenshots purporting to show major Australian publications reporting lurid details of accusations against a Greens senator have been fabricated using AI.
The images shared on social media appear to show coverage from The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald detailing allegations against Western Australian senator Jordon Steele-John.
But the screenshots are fake, and the supposed details do not appear in real news reports.
The screenshots were originally posted by a satire account on X, where they were labelled as being created using X's AI image generator, Grok Imagine.
The Western Australian Greens are investigating allegations about the senator's conduct towards women, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on October 15, 2026.
A group of Greens members and staffers claimed they were aware of multiple allegations involving Senator Steele-John's behaviour in the presence of women, the report said.
The senator has denied any wrongdoing and has since published a statement about the allegations, which include one allegation of sexual assault.
Fake news reports claiming to reveal new allegations have since spread online.
An October 17 Facebook post includes an image stylised as a news story on the Sydney Morning Herald's website.
It includes a lurid headline about Senator Steele-John and an image of the politician in front of a backdrop of women's underwear.
But the newspaper didn't publish the story, and the image includes a watermark for X's AI tool, Grok, in the bottom-right corner.
The image appears to have been posted first by a satire account on X, where it was labelled as being made with Grok Imagine.
The X account has posted numerous AI-generated videos and images of Senator Steele-John, which other social media users later reposted on Facebook.
For example, the X account posted an AI-generated image on October 15, stylised to look like The Australian's live blog, and labelled it "Made with Grok Imagine".
The image was later reposted on Facebook without clear disclosure that it was AI-generated.
The story in the image includes a headline that details supposedly "shocking allegations" about the senator's conduct towards women.
However, there is no record that The Australian published such a story.
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