Manipulated Images, Videos, Influencers and Information

Without hesitation, these things are posted and quickly disseminated among the population.

It’s been a wild week. I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling this way. Without opening this entire thing up with doom and gloom, this has been a difficult week in world news, and in the news community as a whole. I just wanted to offload some of my passing thoughts here.

Since the Israel-Hamas conflict began, there have been endless heaps of misinformation flooding the internet. Old video clips from years past, photoshopped images, pictures being created using AI, and of course the usual suspects publishing untrue headlines based on hearsay and outright propaganda being handed down.

Without hesitation, these things are posted and quickly disseminated among the population. Posts on social media soon reach millions+ in shares, everyone has seen it, formed their opinions, and then regurgitated it back into the ether- usually with their own hot take attached.

Propaganda is nothing new, and by this point, most people understand the fact that legacy media outlets specifically are used to deliver the majority of it. What they don’t have any hand in is where it goes once it’s released to the public.

It’s a bit like the old childhood game of “Telephone”. Things begin to get muffled over time with each person repeating their perceived interpretation of the information they’ve received.

This week, for me personally, was very eye-opening. Not to learn any of the above, however. These are things you learn very early on as a journalist. It’s one of the main reasons I wanted to write professionally. The truth is difficult to come by these days because to reach the truth, you’re going to have to dig through all the muck, and sometimes that takes some time.

In a world where time only seems to be speeding up, and ever-present technology helping to erode seconds off of our attention span, people don’t always have the time necessary to invest in getting all of the details of any story.

Many rely on trusted sources to spoon-feed them the information they need to make decisions and to feel up-to-date with all significant happenings in the world. So, what happens when these “trusted sources” are publishing bad info? What happens when this information is proven to be untrue or unverified, yet these “trusted sources” do nothing to issue a correction? What happens when these same outlets publish purposely misleading headlines to draw people in?

A prime example happened just this week with the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital via The New York Times. They received over 10,000 video clips allegedly from the scene. After running them all through software, less than 1% were found to be legit videos- meaning, not manipulated in some way, many contained elements of AI themselves.

On the other side of the coin, you have bad-faith actors who purposefully post bad information into the ether. This has also been happening since the birth of media- radio, TV, ads, etc.

Chosen influencers, talking heads, and news anchors are willing to read whatever information is sitting in front of them without a second thought about legitimacy. Some of them know it’s not good info, but don’t care. They get that paycheck at the end of the day, and that’s what it’s all about after all, right?

A payday, fame, your name in lights, a huge following salivating at their feet waiting for the next set of talking points to be dished out.

It’s pathetic and disturbing that “trusted sources” or those we feel we’ve vetted enough to trust the information coming from them can be so easily manipulated by the source’s lack of character.

Alas, we’re in a really weird time. A time when sometimes your eyes deceive you. A time when media is easily manipulated and in a quest to get this information out before any other outlet or influencer, reckless information is being released, digested, and regurgitated.

We’re entering into a new realm that includes AI, purposeful disinformation, and those who would rather be the first to collect clicks and eyeballs than be accurate.