The web has multiplied our ability to obtain information, but it has also increased the chances that such information is false. Economics, politics, natural disasters, wars... nothing escapes the constant manipulation of digital material. While verifying the origin of a text can be more complicated, if you come across an image or a video and something doesn't quite add up, there are different tools to establish its authenticity.
Attacks "recent" that never happened, floods with images published several years ago, war zones belonging to different countries... the list goes on. Why would someone decide to distribute false information? The reasons are very varied, from simple to very complex. Election periods are particularly bitter in this regard, with candidates who encourage and finance their cyber-followers to attack their rivals via social networks and other alternative media.
The lack of scruples in the distribution of false information forces the user to become a detective, having to verify the origin of every image and video that accompanies an article, a report, or an accusation. How can we know if a viral story is full of bacteria...?
YouTube DataViewer
Amnesty International maintains the YouTube Data Viewer service, which aims to analyze aspects of a video such as upload date and thumbnail views. If you are watching a video of a bombing or an attack, and the story offers no additional context, DataViewer will help you verify that the video is from that place or event, and not a copy with a false title. At the same time, the thumbnails can be used in another way...
Reverse Image Search
Thanks to the magic of Photoshop and other similar tools, altering images is easier than ever, which makes it possible to support all kinds of false stories. Fortunately, the same technology that helps the proliferation of fake images also allows us to detect their lies thanks to reverse image search services like Google Images, the famous TinEye, or, even better, Yandex image search. If a "new" story uses altered photos from 2012 taken on another continent, well... there's not much else to add.
Forensic Image Analysis
The quality of a Photoshop session depends directly on the skill of its user, and in the hands of masters, the results can be impressive. However, a trained eye will always find something "extra" if the algorithms are appropriate. In September 2011 we talked about the Image Error Level Analyser portal, and today we find FotoForensics, a sort of spiritual successor with the same capabilities. Interpreting the results isn't entirely easy, but once we know where to look, few things manage to escape.
Geotags and EXIF Data
Almost every camera and smartphone has the ability to generate additional metadata about an image, which not only indicates essential aspects like basic camera settings, but also the estimated location. If geolocation data is available, there's nothing better than turning to map services (Google Maps, Yandex Maps, Wikimapia, etc.), entering the coordinates and checking that it's the right place. EXIF data can be read with multiple tools (local and online), but most social networks remove them for security reasons.
WolframAlpha
To close, let's say you are looking at an image that shows a very specific weather. Was there really a torrential rain on that date that could flood houses and businesses? The best thing is to ask WolframAlpha. The classic tool oriented to mathematical operations is also capable of presenting historical information about weather in different regions of the globe. If you have the day, time, and place, it is likely that WolframAlpha has the information. Good luck!
