Fox News Falls for Racist AI Videos of Black Women on Food Stamps—Then Tries to Hide It

By Kahlil Greene · History Can't Hide ·Nov 3, 2025 · 4 min read

Deep Dives

Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:

Welfare queen 15 min read
The article directly references Reagan's 'welfare queen' rhetoric and traces how these AI videos recycle stereotypes from his 1976 campaign. Understanding the origin and political function of this specific racial trope is essential context for recognizing how AI is now automating decades-old racist propaganda.
Blackface 11 min read
The article uses the term 'digital blackface' to describe AI-generated racist caricatures. Understanding the history of blackface as a performance tradition that dehumanized Black Americans provides crucial context for why these AI videos represent a technological continuation of a centuries-old racist practice.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program 15 min read
SNAP/EBT benefits are central to the fake videos Fox reported on. Understanding how SNAP actually works—its eligibility requirements, benefit levels, and demographics of recipients—provides factual grounding that exposes why the AI-generated claims are so divorced from reality.

Last Thursday, Fox News ran a story that should terrify anyone who cares about truth in media. They reported on Black women threatening to “ransack” grocery stores over SNAP benefits, quoting extensively from viral TikTok videos.

Just one problem: The women weren’t real. They were AI-generated racist caricatures, and Fox News couldn’t tell the difference.

Or maybe they could, and they didn’t care.

@showtoolsai AI videos are dividing us. #ebt #shutdown #viral #fatigue #governmentshutdown AI slop accounts have turned to rage content to get engagement and spread fake AI realities. Detecting AI vs real videos is a small part of the media literacy skills we need to get through this moment.

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AI-generated “We are the EBT Bitches” video. EBT, or Electronic Benefits Transfer, is a system states use to deliver government benefits.

The Digital Minstrel Show Fox Called “News”

The original Fox News article, posted Halloween afternoon, bore the headline: “SNAP Beneficiaries Threaten to Ransack Stores Over Government Shutdown.” Reporter Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi quoted multiple “mothers” from TikTok, including one who allegedly said: “It is the taxpayer’s responsibility to take care of my kids.”

Another “woman” supposedly complained about feeding her seven children, saying “I have seven different baby daddies and none of ‘em no good for me.”

@nextgenzbot ✨ebt baddies✨#fyp #ai #fy

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If these quotes sound like they’re ripped from a 1980s Reagan speech about “welfare queens,” that’s because they essentially are. These AI videos were created by accounts like “Impossible_ASMR1” specifically to generate racist rage-bait. The digital blackface was so obvious that the fake children were missing limbs and frozen in place while the “mothers” recited scripts lifted from white supremacist fever dreams.

undefined — Reagan popularized the stereotypes and the term “welfare queen” during his 1976 campaign

But Fox News didn’t just fall for it, they amplified it. The article noted that Fox contributor Brett Cooper discussed the videos on her YouTube channel, calling them “insane.”

The Quiet Cover-Up

Here’s where it gets worse. After being called out, Fox didn’t issue an apology. They quietly rewrote the entire article, changed the headline to “AI Videos of SNAP Beneficiaries Complaining About Cuts Go Viral,” and added a buried editor’s note admitting they’d reported on AI videos “without noting that.”

But the Internet Archive captured it all. The

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