Deepfakes: Election 2020
Deepfakes and doctored images are still surfacing the web in 2020. With technology advancing, it is becoming a bit difficult to distinguish between real and fake news sometimes. In this year’s election, there were a few deepfakes that surfaced the web.
According to Chapter 4 of The Verification Handbook, technology has been constantly progressing since 2005. It brings an exponential rise in the use of social media and phones. With this new rise, it is also becoming easier to track down the source, location, etc. “While tracking down the source of an image begins with the person who uploaded it, it often ends with a different person — the one who actually captured the image.”
People tend to create fake news and deepfakes around election time. They do this because it is a huge trending topic, to be funny, and most importantly, to change peoples’ opinions about candidates.
President Donald Trump has been tweeting that there has been a case of voter fraud after Joe Biden has been projected as the president-elect. Reporters have been asking the Trump campaign for evidence or proof and they have not provided any of the above, let alone any comment.
After using TweetDeck to find an image to verify as true. I came across this tweet from Nov. 6, 2020. In the images below it shows ballots that voted for Trump have been dumped in the streets and are planning to be burnt.
Reverse Image Search
If an image stands out or looks suspicious, one of a few steps is to do a reverse image search. This will reveal if the image has been posted somewhere else or stolen.
After searching on google for this image, it has been proven that this was an image taken awhile back from a military base and happened to resurface the internet claiming lost voting ballots.
Shadow Analysis
Another step to identify if the image is real or fake is to spot the shadow of any object. If the shadow of any image does not match the correct size or form, then it is more than likely a fake image.
Geo-Location Analysis
This is also an important step to examine an image. Many people can overwrite their location, but sometimes it does not always overwrite correctly, leading them to pinpoint where exactly they posted this image.
