SHEIN, the online fast-fashion retailer, which found itself in trouble because a product listing on its website showed what looked like Luigi Mangione (the guy accused of killing Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare) modelling a shirt. The listing showed a man very similar to him wearing a short-sleeved patterned button-up and the listing was live long enough to trigger social-media outrage. SHEIN removed the image once it was noticed, and said it came from a third-party vendor and that they’re launching a full investigation and tightening their oversight.
What makes this wild is the mix of issues it touches: the ethics of using (or uploading) an image that resembles a suspect in a high-profile murder case, the question of whether it was AI-generated or manipulated, and the bigger problem of how fast fashion platforms monitor their content/vendors. Experts pointed out small giveaways in the image (weird hand/finger shapes, lighting oddities) that made them suspect AI involvement.
