This is a really dark pattern, which is clearly being used for deception and plausible deniability (the article is reposted with the embedded picture - everyone sees the picture and assumes it's a photo without checking - it's not us, we warned you it's generated, with a tiny line decoupled from the picture nobody ever paid attention to).

Such use of generated images is extremely myopic and will backfire, or already backfired, sowing doubt in everything they and their side writes, regardless of their credibility. The case will be heavily abused by the opposite propaganda as well.