Semper Fi? The US Army has confirmed that no female soldier called Jessica Foster has ever existed.
RTS/Instagram/Swissinfo
Happy April Fool’s Day! Everything in this press review is real – apart from one of the central characters! Have you been paying to chat to US soldier Jessica Foster? If you have, I’ve got some bad news…
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Statute of liberty: A protester being arrested for failure to disperse in Los Angeles on Saturday.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
“Is something shifting in America?” the Tages-Anzeiger asked on Sunday, the day after millions of people demonstrated across the United States against US President Donald Trump, his war in Iran and his authoritarian policies.
“Donald Trump’s opponents never tire,” the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) said on Sunday, noting that eight million of them (according to organisers) had gathered for the third time in a year for nationwide “No Kings” protest marches.
It said that in addition to denouncing Trump’s migration policy and the ICE immigration agency, protestors now criticised the war in Iran – “on the one hand, they are bothered by the arbitrary and seemingly chaotic way in which Trump is conducting the war, on the other hand they are annoyed by the consequences: the high and rising price of petrol”.
The NZZ reckoned the No Kings marches were “unlikely to tip the balance of political power in the US”, given that it’s mainly committed Trump opponents who take part. “However, the nationwide events are proof that Trump’s opponents beyond the Democratic Party elite remain determined to ensure a change of power in Congress in the mid-term elections. A lot depends on this commitment: if the Democrats want to win in November, they must ensure that all those who are dissatisfied with Trump’s administration actually turn out to vote.”
The third No Kings day didn’t bring any fundamentally new insights, the NZZ concluded. “Many Americans, especially on the left, continue to loathe the president and his policies. But the Iran war can help them to broaden their anti-Trump coalition – if it lasts any longer and makes everyday life in the country noticeably more expensive.”
The Tages-Anzeiger in Zurich agreed that it’s not just the No Kings protests that are a growing problem for Trump. “Perhaps something is shifting in America,” it said. “The fact that even some Republican politicians are now publicly voicing their frustration about the war in Iran speaks in favour of this. It also suggests that Trump is more unpopular than ever, and if everything is above board in the elections in autumn, he and his MAGA movement will probably have to prepare for defeat.”
Steve Jobs next to an iMac in 1998.
Keystone
Tech giant Apple turned 50 on Wednesday. Swiss newspapers looked at the legacy of co-founder Steve Jobs and warned that the “success monster” was facing an existential challenge from artificial intelligence.
Fifty years ago, on April 1, 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded Apple. However, for Le Temps in Geneva, “Apple is, of course, one man: Steve Jobs, a brilliant inventor who was sidelined in 1985, then returned 12 years later to create flagship products such as the iMac, iPod and iPhone”.
Jobs, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) explained, “was neither a tinkerer nor an inventor. Jobs was a perfectionist who understood what users wanted. Others built the hardware and wrote the software. Jobs made the product cool”.
Even today, Jobs, who died in 2011, is regarded as the epitome of the modern entrepreneur, the NZZ said. “He was the first to stage product presentations as shows. He made computers speak, pulled slim laptops out of envelopes. With his black turtleneck, he created a uniform and turned himself into a brand.”
The Apple brand, Le Temps reminded its readers, is now worth $4.3 trillion (CHF3.4 trillion) and has 166,000 employees. Last year it generated sales of $416 billion and profits of more than $110 billion. “Apple is a success monster, a cash machine, an iconic brand. But nothing is ever guaranteed,” it said on Wednesday.
“First there is the challenge of artificial intelligence (AI). The company was a pioneer when it launched its Siri voice assistant in 2011 [… but] unable to evolve Siri, unable to develop its own AI universe and unable to keep its promises, Apple had to accept ChatGPT on its phones.”
There was also the question of innovation, Le Temps continued, pointing out that Apple’s latest flagship product, the Vision Pro headset, was a niche item priced at nearly CHF4,000 ($5,000). And even though the company has just launched a MacBook Neo costing CHF579, “new products are rare”.
However, Serge Nussbaumer at Zurich-based Maverix Securities took a more positive view. “Apple is lagging behind in generative AI, that’s obvious. But […] Apple doesn’t need to develop the best model, it needs to deliver the best AI experience on its devices. And the company is perfectly capable of doing that. Apple has rarely been the first, but it has often been the best at integration, monetisation and scaling,” he told Le Temps.
As for innovation, “Apple doesn’t just sell devices, it sells an ecosystem that generates recurring revenue for years”, Nussbaumer said. “Once you’re deeply tied to the iPhone, iCloud, the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and other services, you’re reluctant to switch.”
Fake news: AI avatar Jessica Foster with Donald Trump.
RTS/Instagram/Swissinfo
Jessica Foster was the “dream girl” of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, according to Swiss public broadcaster RTS. The only problem was she was indeed a dream – an AI creation. RTS explains why her case illustrates a “worrying emerging trend in the age of artificial intelligence”.
Last week several Swiss news websites featured pictures of a photogenic US soldier, Jessica Foster. Between December 2025 and March 2026, Foster’s Instagram profile went viral in the United States, accumulating over a million followers, thousands of likes “and declarations of love”, RTS said. It explained that the account featured Foster, always smiling and in uniform, often posing with fighter jets or aircraft carriers or alongside political figures such as US President Donald Trump and even Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“But Foster’s entire digital identity – including her photos, videos, captions and a pro-Trump ‘America First’ biography – was created entirely using AI-based image and video generation tools,” RTS said.
It explained how deepfake experts and investigative journalists had quickly spotted numerous inconsistencies, such as a first name on an ID tag and incorrect American flags. The US Army subsequently confirmed that no female soldier called Jessica Foster had ever existed.
“But Foster was not merely a hoax,” RTS said. “Behind this account lay a commercial objective: to direct a specific audience – predominantly male, conservative and patriotic – towards an OnlyFans page.” OnlyFans is an online content subscription service where people charge followers, or fans, for posted content. According to RTS, some “fans” of Foster reportedly spent considerable sums, up to over $100 (CHF80) for a single post, believing they were interacting with a real soldier who personally replied to their messages.
As the Neue Zürcher Zeitung pointed out, “her proximity to Donald Trump and her military rank are intended to appeal specifically to men from the MAGA movement”.
RTS reported that Meta, which owns Instagram, finally closed the account on March 19 because it had failed to disclose the use of AI and had published misleading content. In theory, OnlyFans did too, but, according to RTS, images of Foster continue to circulate on other social media platforms, notably X.
“The case of Jessica Foster illustrates a worrying emerging trend in the age of artificial intelligence. It’s no longer just a matter of fake news or doctored images, but of the creation of fully fledged fictional digital personas, designed to manipulate political emotions, sexual desires and public trust,” RTS said.
“This phenomenon highlights an increasingly widespread strategy within the neoconservative camp in the United States – though not exclusively – where far-right accounts use a mix of patriotism, soft porn and AI to spread political messages, monetise user interest and gain popularity.”
The next edition of ‘Swiss views of US news’ will be published on Wednesday, April 8. See you then!
If you have any comments or feedback, email english@swissinfo.ch
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