No, Italy’s Lake Como didn’t dry up

Did one of Italy’s most celebrated lakes dry up? That’s the claim made by a report that has garnered more than 600,000 views on X and TikTok: that Lake Como, in northern Italy, is now empty: “One of Italy’s most celebrated landscapes has turned into an immense field of mud, rocks and stranded boats. The first images were filmed in Bellagio [a town located on the banks of the lake – Ed]. You can see the water disappearing at astonishing speed, leaving jetties suspended above the void,” says the narrator of the report. The “journalist” hypothesises that the lake has emptied because of a “geological rupture”. This is a screengrab of the AI-generated report posted online on August 12, 2026. "Lake Como has run dry," the caption reads. © X There’s just one thing. These shocking images of a dried-up Lake Como are false. They were generated by artificial intelligence. The lake is still full of water We were able to identify the TikTok account that first posted this video thanks to the watermark on it. The account is called @naturevsia. The description on the profile leaves no doubt as to the origin of its videos: “AI News”. It turns out this is a fake media outlet that produces sensational...