Make Sure the Photo Is Legal With a Reverse Google Image Search
If the last few years have taught us anything, it is that “fake news” has found its home on social media.
While “fake” messages are often news, they can also be images that people are sharing, sometimes without the knowledge that what they are sharing is not true.
For example: Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron posted an image along with a message calling for an emergency order to save the Amazon rainforest.
Yes, the Amazon is undergoing a massive catastrophe , but the photo that Macron posted was actually a 16-year-old Amazon stock photo taken by a photographer who died in 2003 .
Oops.
If you want to make sure that what you post online is real (and you have to), then you can check photos like the one Macron posted with a reverse image search on Google Images or Tin Eye. CNET covered how to use both in a post this week.
As far as Google is concerned, if you’re using Chrome, you can search for images simply by right-clicking on them and choosing “Search Google for Images” from the drop-down menu. There is also an extension for Chrome .
Tin Eye does the same by dragging and dropping an image or uploading it to a website.
In the case of Macron’s portrayal, it might not do much good. After the president shared the photo, several other news organizations did so, so it has appeared in a variety of places, enough that you can still mistake it for legitimate.
However, doing a search can often help you quickly see where else an image has been posted. If you’re willing to dig a little, you’ll also be able to see if it was posted online long before the event it purportedly depicts.
For example, if a snapshot of today’s shooting was published three weeks ago … it’s a fake.