Don't be fooled by fake pics, videos online: Here's how to spot them

Digital images often contain rich metadata that can provide clues as to their provenance and authenticity.

One month before the 2016 U. S. presidential election, an “Access Hollywood” recording of Donald Trump was released in which he was heard lewdly talking about women. The then-candidate and his campaign apologized and dismissed the remarks as harmless.

At the time, the authenticity of the recording was never questioned. Just two years later, the public finds itself in a dramatically different landscape in terms of believing what it sees and hears.

Advances in artificial intelligence have made it easier to create compelling and sophisticated fake images, videos and audio recordings. Meanwhile, misinformation proliferates on social media, and a polarized public may have become accustomed to being fed news that conforms to their worldview.

All contribute to a climate in which it is increasingly more difficult to believe what you see and hear online.

There are some things that you can do to protect yourself from falling for a hoax. As the author of the upcoming book “Fake Photos,” to be published in August, I’d like to offer a few tips to protect yourself from falling for a hoax.

(Business Standard)

1. Check if the image has already been debunked

Many fake images are recirculated and have previously been debunked. A reverse image search is a simple and effective way to see how an image has previously been used.

Unlike a typical internet search in which keywords are specified, a reverse image search on Google or TinEye can search for the same or similar images in a vast database.

Reverse image search engines cannot exhaustively index the vastly expansive, ever-changing content on the internet. So, even if the image is on the internet, there is no guarantee that it will have been found by the site. In this regard, not finding an image doesn’t mean it’s real – or fake.

You can improve the likelihood of a match by cropping the image to contain only the region of interest. Because this search requires you to upload images to a commercial site, take care when uploading any sensitive images.

2. Check the metadata

Digital images often contain rich metadata that can provide clues as to their provenance and authenticity.

Metadata is data about data. The metadata for a digital image includes the camera make and model; camera settings like aperture size and exposure time; the date and time when the image was captured; the GPS location where the image was captured; and much more.