Creating a fake or morphed content is easy and anyone with even a little knowledge of Microsoft Word (not necessary to know about Photoshop) can create a content of their choice. As a user, when you see such content on internet and you are aware about original story, most likely you will get influenced by it and may end up believing it. On the part of the reader, making anything viral on social media takes an illogical thinking and takes some micro seconds to click like/share. The content created has done its job as an influencer and you have done yours by getting influenced from it.
With easily accessible internet, domain names, and website building tools; these fake or morphed photos are not limited to social media or widely used messaging app WhatsApp. Fake content is uploaded on websites too and at some point of time you might have seen such links (carrying this info) on your social media wall. I published my
first article in Feb 2016 on fake news and ever since I have been educating people about fake news/photos. Over time, I have encountered many such articles and photos delivering false information. This blog is focused on Fake Graphic (Photo) content. Most commonly available graphics (containing fake/morphed information) on social media can be divided into three categories.
- Photo of News Article
- Photo of Status Update of a Person
- Photo with Text
Photo of News Article
Very often on social media, you see an image of news article/paper which may look real but can be fake or digitally edited too. There can be several types of photos of news articles.
(1) Photo of news paper taken from camera/mobile:
Usually, such photos are taken with a prospective viewpoint and are highly distorted, contains other news on the same page, background. Cell phone cameras are used to take such photos.
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Front page photo from camera
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| An article photo from camera |
How to identify if the photo is real:
- Read the headline and context together. Don't just believe on headline, if there is picture in the article, find a correlation with the article
- Read the reporter's name, date of the article and place of reporting (some of the article do have these)
- Look at the overall color or shade of the picture. It should have uniform color shades across image and image noise should be uniform
- Headline and rest of the text should have similar orientation/projection and font style
- There are apps which generate an image look-a-like news article, check for date of publication and search online about the article using google or the website of the news article
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| An article photo from camera (original) |
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| Morphed photo by editing graphical image on article |
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| Morphed photo by editing title of the article |
If you find something suspicious which is potentially edited, report it to the concerned authority. You can also Report (or Report Abuse) on the same media platform.
(2) Photo of newspaper article scanned from a scanner:
This is usually done by professionals as normal user may not have access to a scanner. Image quality is very high and you can read minute details in these images. Scanned images are well projected and evenly distributed from corner to corner of the image.
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| Scanned image of a news article |
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| Scanned image of a news article |
How to identify if the photo is real:
- Professionals include newspaper name and date with the scanned article or they write it down manually
- Paper copy texture can be seen across the scanned image
- Text distribution is even everywhere and fonts are uniform
- Read title and entire article and make sure both complement each other
- If something is fishy and the story doesn't make sense; stop sharing it. Sometimes news editors/reporters do mistakes in printing/reporting news
- App generated articles look very professional and texture pattern can be easily identified (it looks artificial, which would be difficult to produce)
- Changing title of existing news article is one of most common practice because while going through the social media wall, we just read title of the news article on the image
- Follow examples from (1) to identify edited title, text and image represented in the article
If you find something suspicious which is potentially edited, report it to the concerned authority. You can also Report (or Report Abuse) on the same media platform.
(3) Photo from an e-Paper:
Screenshot or saved image form an e-paper is the most clear article image one can get. The images are non-distorted, text has better resolution and image is clear/noiseless. E-paper articles are usually similar to the ones which are printed on physical paper but they adjust according to the screen resolution and window size of the browser.
How to identify if the photo is real:
- E-paper articles can be easily found using google search. Same image may not be found but other relevant article can be found on different websites
- Go to the website of the e-paper article and search for the same article based on city and date
- E-paper articles may contain reporter's name, place and date
- If article's original link is provided, verify the link
- E-paper look-a-like articles are easy to create using any word processing software. Be careful if you come across such an article and trust only the verified information
- It is hard to differentiate if the title is added on top of original unless font is very different from the rest of the text. Non-expert photo editors usually commit such mistakes and use most common/default text fonts while editing titles
- Read the entire article with title before you react to it and share
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| An e-paper image from epaper.jagran.com. Look at the image quality, text, and pic; everything is perfect |
Photo of Status Update of a Person
This is another common image you can find on social media and in your WhatsApp messages. Most social media users update their status (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram etc) but updates from celebrities are more interesting to normal users. Their updates are influential and inspirational to their fans so the screen shots of status updates are widely shared by the masses. As a social media influencer, if you want to sell your idea, simply mix your idea as a celebrity idea and sell it in the social media market. There are real fans out there who are ready to believe in everything their idols post. There are two ways to spread false information.
(4) Fake Account
Creating a fake account on the name of someone else is easy. But identifying if the account is real or fake is not impossible. Look at following original and fake profiles of Anupam Kher and Bobby Deol.
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| Original and Fake twitter profiles of Anupam Kher and Bobby Deol |
How to identify if the profile is real:
- There is no other way than to go to the person/celebrity profile on a social media site
- Look for the verified tick mark (Blue circle with white tick mark) next to the profile name
- Look for the number of followers (celebrity profile have large number of followers)
- Look at other tweets/updates from the person (does the tweet/updates looks uniform)
- Look how the profile name is spelled, does it read correctly?
- Look for abusive or objectionable tweet/updates form the account
If you find that account is fake, you can report it right on the website. These days social media sites are serious about fake accounts. Many fake accounts have been suspended in past.
(5) Modified Status Update
Some photos of another person's status update you see on social media sites are morphed or fake. This is usually done by adding modified status on top of original status image. Later this is shared as original status update from a specific person. Most of the status update screen shots contain date and time.
How to identify if the status update is real:
- Go to the profile and look for status updates
- Finding a status update is not very hard, as there might be few status updates in a day
- Use guideline given in (4) to check if the account is real or fake
- Use keywords and search status while you are on the person's profile
- Even though it is not easy to identify morphed status update, but look for its font style. If the name and status text style mis-matches, dig more into it and search closely
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| Original status update (tweet) from original account of Ravish Kumar |
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| Changed status update (tweet) from original account of Ravish Kumar |
Photo with Text
Photos are best tool to gain attention of social media users. It is less likely that users read a story posted as a text. If something is shared as an image, it grabs users attention and their reaction is vital. Sharing a photo is convenient than sharing the text story, because when a text story is shared, only a few starting lines are visible and users have to click continue reading to read the full story. On the other hand, shared photos do not hide any information. There are three major types of photos which may play with users emotions.
(6) Quotes
Quotes are very popular on social media. Usually quotes are taken from different article/books from an author and shared with their picture on social media. Not all the quotes need to be true. Some quotes are useful and some are harmful with incomplete information. Look at the following picture of Abraham Lincoln quoting about internet when internet didn't exist during his time. A little bit of common sense can save many opinions.
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| A quote about Internet from Abrahim Lincoln during the time when people didn't know about internet. Can it be true? |
Following quotation from Julian Assange from WikiLeaks was very popular in India during 2014. I have no idea who started it but it went viral on internet such that WikiLeaks had to issue an official statement regarding this.
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| A fake leak claimed to be from Julian Assange, later WikiLeaks clarified that it is fake in their official statement |
(7) News / representative photo
Some of the photos you see on social media are meant to spread news. In some cases the news is true and some it is false. Because it is our nature of being lazy to go over the entire article, we believe in what we get easily. But remember, there is no shortcut. No regular news agency create such content (graphic of news title with an image and small description). Such content is usually created by fans and other unofficial community pages such that it can be made viral. Be careful about authenticity of such photos. Always check the relevant news from google or other search engines. Also such photos have limited space, so they don't include all story usually filled with only one opinion.
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| NanoChip in Rs 2000 notes was viral during Demonitization in India. Many (including news channels) believed |
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| This false survey claimed to be conducted by BBC was viral once |
How to identify if the content is real:
- Always trust on information shared by reliable sources; your friends may not have reliable source
- Always check the original person who posted the info, use help in (4) if it is shared by a genuine account
- Check the website of news source
- Use Google search using key word or search entire title given in photo
- If it says, "No Media will show this", try to ignore such message, most likely it is false
- If someone forwarded or shared such article which seems to be false, ask about the source from them, if they are unable to answer ask them to share the source
- Ignore any news image/article which seems false, you can report such images if it is on social media site such as Facebook and Twitter
(8) Morphed photo
Morphing a photo is another common practice found on internet. Some people edit an photo for education, others for fun, jokes, personality building or even personality destruction. In any case, morphed photo is always morphed and can be interpreted differently by different people. Education, fun and jokes might be acceptable as sarcasm but sometimes it comes to spreading hatred among community people. It will never go straight as different users keep adding content according to their choice.
Many of us might have seen Mahatma Gandhi in a fake image with a girl (very close to kissing each other) and Kanhaiya Kumar from JNU for his fake photo in front of India map with Pakistan.
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| Left: Morphed Photo, Right: Original Photo |
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| Left: Original Image, Right: Morphed Image |
How to identify if the image is real:
- For a normal user it is hard to identify the original image unless photoshopped image have some glitch
- Best shot here is Google Image Search and explore searched results beyond one page of search results and most likely you will find your answer
- Look for light conditions in different parts of the image; do you see any difference?
- Look at boundaries of subject in a photoshopped image; are the boundary pixels different from background?
- Is image resolution uniform across the image
- Examine boundaries of object closely, you may find it is photoshopped or original (in case Google Image Search does not help)
(9) Mis-Representated Photo
This is another common practice among social media users. Subject matter in the image does not remain same, it might be mis-represented. Meaning: Content from another place can be told as from some other place and in a different form/story. Image representation changes its form depending on the story it is used to tell.
Following is just one example from social media. Social media is full of such content which is taken from another place and captioned differently.
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| A different photo represented with different caption from Laughing Colors on Facebook |
How to identify if the image is real:
- Photo is real in most cases but it is represented wrongly
- Google Image Search is best option here, you can easily find such images on Google
- If a matching image is found on Google, check when it was posted? Does the story on Google image matches the shared story?
- Check who is sharing it? Does the account has shared such image in the past?
- Always ask for authenticity of the source image
(10) Old Photo
This is very close to (9). Here (in most cases) image remains original and caption supports the picture. But the place of picture taken and date is changed. This is mostly used in spreading false propaganda against some person or creating tension in the community. The opportunist claims the disturbing content in a image as to be from a different place and date. Sharing a factual information (correct date and place) is fine, but a modified content with different place and date may be harmful.
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| A screen shot from a Bhojpuri Movie was claimed to be a scene of recent riots in West Bengal, India |
How to identify if the image and content is matching:
- Download the image on your system and use Google Image Search to find the original person/website of the concerned image
- Go to the website of the image from the search result
- Read through the article and see the date of publication of the article
- Does the image shared talks the same thing discussed in the searched article? Both might be wrong, but it is more likely that the first article is correct (if first is not correct, second can't be)
- Look at the profile of person who shared the image and scroll through the profile
- If you find similar post from the timeline of the person, please ignore and report the shared image
This is all about finding if the image (or content in an image) is real or fake. I hope you like this article, please share it with your friends such that they know these basic techniques and use these to identify fake images. Special thanks to
www.smhoaxslayer.com for doing great job in finding origins of a news article for you. It is time we should learn these basic skills to identify if the content on social media is right or wrong.
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