Don’t Be Fooled by Fake Viral Videos
When you see a video on the Internet that seems too wild to be true, chances are it is. Along with fake news, fake viral videos are prevalent all over Facebook and YouTube, many of them made by people who know what they are doing, making it difficult to determine if they are on the rise or not. Fake videos, such as abald eagle grabbing achild , orvideos of a friend accidentally killing another can be alarming if you don’t realize these are tricks.
The Verge recently spoke with director and visual effects specialist Alan Melikdzhanyan , who made some of his own real-life fake videos, for some tips on how to tell fake news from real news.
Carry out research
Melikjanian’s first sentence is simple: ask yourself if the video is real. (It seems obvious, but we were all to blame for taking questionable internet information at face value at some point.) Google what you are looking at and identify, for example, the “thing” that was talked about earlier. , ahoverboard with ajet engine or something completely new.
To that end, you need to do a little research to figure out when was the first incarnation of what you are looking at. For example, did this video start with an iguana playing ukulele, or was the iguana on a world tour that was covered by CNN and The New York Times ? Consider the original source and how trustworthy you think it is. Also, assume that brands are ready to create amazing things to advertise. For example,this video of Kobe Bryant jumping over a car was actually an ad for the Nike shoes he wears.
Get up close and personal
If you’ve done your research and are still not sure how legitimate a video is, upload it and watch frame by frame, specifically looking for inconsistencies. You need to watch out for shadows or reflections, and for wires that can be used to make something move that would not otherwise be there. Often times, places where something like a person or a wire has been digitally removed will appear blurry on the screen, as if it were in a forged photograph.
In general, the idea is to be skeptical and check the situation, but not overdo it with your skepticism. Melikdzhanyan says that these days people most often mistake real videos for fake, and not vice versa, because today it is generally accepted that everything was falsified. You can check all his thoughts on The Verge .