Evaluating Photos & Videos: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #7

Summary

In this Crash Course episode, John Green explores the power and pitfalls of images in digital information. He discusses how images, despite their seeming objectivity, can be manipulated or taken out of context to deceive. Green highlights the importance of scrutinizing the source and context of images, especially with the rise of deepfakes and photoshopped content. He also introduces tools like reverse image search and fact-checking websites to help viewers discern真伪 online, emphasizing the need for critical evaluation of visual evidence.

Takeaways

• 🧠 Images have a powerful influence on our brains and can shape our perceptions, as illustrated by John Green's experience with the Harry Potter characters.
• 📸 Photographs, despite appearing real and objective, can be manipulated, as seen in historical examples like Matthew Brady's Civil War photographs.
• 🖼️ The advent of digital tools like Photoshop has made image manipulation easier, increasing the need for skepticism and verification.
• 🔍 To discern the authenticity of images, one should examine the pixels, as humorously suggested, but more seriously, consider the source and context.
• 🎥 The power of images extends to videos, which can be equally persuasive and equally susceptible to manipulation.
• 🤔 The human brain's predisposition to trust images can be exploited, as in the case of movie special effects and misleadingly edited videos.
• 🗣️ Misleading images can have serious consequences, as demonstrated by doctored photos of public figures and events.
• 🕵️‍♂️ Fact-checking and reverse image searches are essential tools for verifying the authenticity of online images.
• 🌐 The internet, particularly social media, can be a breeding ground for image hoaxes, which can spread rapidly and have real-world impacts.
• 🔎 Lateral reading skills are crucial for evaluating the credibility of online information, including images and videos, to make informed decisions.

Q & A

What is the main point of the video script about?

The main point of the video script is to discuss the power of images and how they can be manipulated or taken out of context to deceive, emphasizing the importance of critically evaluating the authenticity and reliability of digital information, particularly images and videos.

Why do photographs feel real and objective to us?

Photographs feel real and objective because they seem to capture a moment of reality, giving the impression that they are unaltered and provide an accurate representation of an event or situation.

What is an example of image manipulation from history mentioned in the script?

An example from history is Matthew Brady’s Civil War photographs, which were often staged, with his assistants moving corpses and changing their postures to maximize the images’ visual power.

How does the script illustrate the unreliability of images in the era of Photoshop?

The script illustrates the unreliability by pointing out that even images that appear unedited can be deceptive due to choices made in framing, timing, and context, and that obviously altered images can be used to fool people.

What is the significance of the 'they say a picture is worth a thousand words' idiom in the context of the script?

The idiom is used to highlight the persuasive power of images, especially in advertising, and how this power can be exploited to manipulate perceptions and beliefs.

How does the script suggest verifying the authenticity of an image online?

The script suggests using reverse image searches on platforms like Google or TinEye, and checking the image's origin and context to determine its authenticity.

What role do fact-checking organizations play in evaluating images according to the script?

Fact-checking organizations like Snopes and Politifact play a crucial role by investigating the authenticity of images and debunking hoaxes, helping to provide reliable context and truth about the images.

Why are videos considered as powerful as images in providing evidence?

Videos are considered as powerful as images because they can provide a dynamic and seemingly more comprehensive representation of events, making them influential in shaping perceptions and beliefs.

What is a deepfake, and why is it concerning according to the script?

A deepfake is a video or other audiovisual content that uses deep learning and artificial intelligence to create highly convincing but fake images or videos. It is concerning because it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish deepfakes from reality, which can lead to the spread of misinformation.

What is the importance of lateral reading when evaluating online information, as mentioned in the script?

Lateral reading is important because it involves looking beyond the immediate source of information to find additional context and verify its authenticity. This practice is crucial for making informed decisions and avoiding the spread of misinformation.

How does the script relate the quality of information to the quality of decisions we make?

The script suggests that the quality and reliability of the information we consume directly impact the quality and reliability of our decisions, emphasizing the need for critical evaluation of information sources.

Outlines

00:00

📸 The Power and Manipulation of Images

John Green discusses the profound impact images have on our perception and how they can be manipulated. He shares his personal experience with the Harry Potter series, where seeing the movie characters influenced his mental image of the book characters. Green emphasizes that photographs, despite seeming objective, can be staged or altered, citing Matthew Brady's Civil War photographs as an example. He also touches on the ease of image manipulation in the digital age with tools like Photoshop. Green warns viewers about the deceptive nature of images online, suggesting that they scrutinize the source and context of images to discern their authenticity.

05:03

🔎 Investigating the Authenticity of Online Images

This section delves into the importance of verifying the credibility of images encountered online. It explains that images can be powerful evidence but also prone to manipulation. The paragraph highlights the need to examine the source of an image and the context in which it is presented. It provides practical advice on using reverse image search tools like Google Images and TinEye to trace an image's origin and check its authenticity. The example of a shark in floodwaters, which turned out to be a hoax, illustrates the potential for images to be misleading without proper verification.

10:05

🎥 The Challenge of Deepfakes and Video Manipulation

The final paragraph addresses the emerging challenge of deepfakes and the manipulation of video content. It explains that deepfakes use artificial intelligence to create highly convincing but false videos, which can be used to misinform or deceive. The paragraph provides examples of deepfakes, including a video of President Obama and another of President Trump, to demonstrate how easily videos can be manipulated. It stresses the importance of lateral reading and researching the origin of videos to assess their validity, warning of the increasing difficulty in distinguishing between real and fake videos as technology advances.

Keywords

💡Digital Information

Digital information refers to data that is encoded in binary form, which is the language of computers. In the context of the video, digital information is the subject matter being discussed, particularly the authenticity and reliability of images and videos found online. The video emphasizes the importance of critically evaluating digital information to discern its accuracy and trustworthiness.

💡Photoshop

Photoshop is a software program used for image editing and manipulation. The video mentions Photoshop as a tool that has made altering images easier than ever, leading to the creation of fake or misleading visuals. It serves as an example of how technology can be used to manipulate digital information, impacting the viewer's perception of reality.

💡Manipulation

Manipulation, in the context of the video, refers to the act of altering images or videos to deceive or mislead. The video discusses how images can be doctored to change their meaning or to create false narratives, such as the examples of Emma Gonzalez and President Trump supporters' shirts being digitally altered.

💡Context

Context is the setting in which something exists or occurs, which provides meaning. The video stresses the importance of understanding the context of an image or video to determine its reliability. Without proper context, images can be easily misinterpreted or used to spread misinformation, as illustrated by the examples of the Mexican election and the children in detention facilities.

💡Fact-Checking

Fact-checking is the process of verifying the accuracy of statements or claims. In the video, fact-checking is presented as a critical tool for evaluating the authenticity of images and videos. It involves cross-referencing information with reliable sources to confirm or debunk the validity of the content.

💡Deepfake

A deepfake is a video or other media in which a person's likeness has been replaced with that of another using artificial intelligence. The video discusses deepfakes as a concerning advancement in digital manipulation, where even videos can be fabricated to show people saying or doing things they never did, which poses a significant challenge to discerning truth in digital information.

💡Lateral Reading

Lateral reading is a technique for critically evaluating information by looking beyond the initial source and seeking out additional context and corroborating evidence. The video encourages the use of lateral reading to investigate the origins and reliability of images and videos encountered online, as a means to combat misinformation.

💡Meme

A meme is a cultural phenomenon, often humorous, that spreads rapidly by being imitated or replicated. In the video, memes are mentioned as a form of digital content that can sometimes be altered or used out of context, contributing to the spread of misinformation. The video uses memes to illustrate how easily images can be manipulated and misinterpreted.

💡Authenticity

Authenticity refers to the quality of being genuine or true. The video's theme revolves around determining the authenticity of digital information, particularly images and videos, to ensure that what is seen and shared is a true representation of reality and not a fabrication or distortion.

💡Reliability

Reliability, in the context of the video, pertains to the dependability of information sources and the accuracy of the content they provide. The video discusses the need to assess the reliability of images and videos by considering the credibility of the source and the context in which they are presented.

💡Evidence

Evidence in the video is used to describe the role of images and videos as forms of proof or support for claims. The video emphasizes that, just like any other type of evidence, visual content must be critically evaluated for its relevance and reliability to ensure it accurately represents the truth.

Highlights

Images have a powerful impact on human brains, influencing our perception and memory.

Photographs are often perceived as real and objective due to their ability to capture a moment in time.

Historically, photographs like Matthew Brady's Civil War images were sometimes staged to enhance their visual impact.

The advent of Photoshop has made it easier to manipulate images, casting doubt on their reliability.

Images can be altered in subtle ways to deceive viewers, as seen with manipulated images of public figures.

Unaltered images can also be misleading when presented out of context or with false information.

A study by the Stanford History Education Group revealed that many students do not question the source of images.

To assess the reliability of images, it's crucial to investigate the source and check for context.

Online tools like reverse image search can help determine the origin and credibility of an image.

Fact-checking organizations play a vital role in identifying and debunking image-related hoaxes.

Videos can be as powerful as images in providing evidence but are also susceptible to manipulation.

Deepfakes, created using AI, can make it difficult to distinguish between real and fake videos.

The importance of lateral reading and seeking additional context to evaluate the quality of online information.

The potential for deep fakes to spread misinformation and the need for critical evaluation of digital evidence.

The impact of the quality and reliability of information on the decisions we make.

Transcripts

Hi I’m John Green, and this is Crash Course: Navigating Digital Information.

So, images are incredibly powerful to human brains.

Like, I read and loved the first four Harry Potter books before seeing a Harry Potter

movie.

And I really liked the movie, but after watching it, I could never see my Harry Potter or Hermione

ever again--I saw only Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.

And also I learned that Hermione is pronounced Hermione.

And not Her-mee-own.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words -- and by “they” I mean the advertiser

who supposedly coined that idiom in the 1940s.

Photographs in particular feel real and objective to us, because they seem to capture a moment

of reality.

More than 150 years ago, Matthew Brady’s iconic Civil War photographs were often staged,

for instance, his assistants would move corpses and change their postures to maximize the

images’ visual power.

But while images have never been as reliable as they seem, this is especially true in the

era of photoshop.

In fact, consider the image you’re looking at right now.

That flower is not actually here.

If you spend as much time online as I do, you spend a lot of it looking at images.

Sometimes those images are unedited, although even then choices are made--how to frame the

image, what to photograph, when and how to share it.

Other times, the images are obviously altered with bunny ear filters or meme text.

Sometimes images are altered in ways meant to fool us.

So how can we decipher what’s real and what’s not?

Well It’s easy!

You can tell by looking at the pixels.

Meredith says that meme is so old that nobody is going to get the joke.

OK.

Roll the intro.

[intro]

So far during this series we’ve talked about how important it is to find out who’s behind

information we learn online, why they’re posting it, and whether the evidence is reliable.

And thanks to their power, images are a very common form of online evidence.

But just like data or text, image-based evidence can be relevant and reliable or irrelevant

and unreliable.

In order to make sense of our online surroundings it is critical to think carefully about whether

image-based evidence is trustworthy because we’re used to thinking that “seeing is

believing.”

I means, special effects-laden movies are popular in part because they are so visually

thrilling--even though we know they aren’t real, they look real, or at least adjacent

to real.

That is why, for instance, I found all five transformers films completely watchable despite

their lack of … you know, plot, character and comprehensible worldbuilding and etc.

They also have that Shia LeBouef in them.

He’s a fascinating character.

Don’t do it Stan.

DON’T. Oh.

Hello Shia.

So, in movies, filmmakers depend partly on our ability to get lost in images--when we

watch a conversation between two people in a film, for instance, we rarely consider that

forty-five minutes elapsed between this shot and this one, because the camera and lights

had to be moved.

The willingness of the human brain to assume that images are real is consistently manipulated

by filmmakers, but also by other people.

Consider, for instance, this manipulated picture of mass shooting survivor and activist Emma

Gonzalez.

It’s doctored to make her look like she was tearing up the U.S. Constitution instead

of the real picture she took with a gun-range target.

Or this one of President Trump supporters whose shirts were digitally altered to read

“Make America White Again” instead of their actual “Make America Great Again”

shirts.

But images don’t have to be altered to fools us, though.

Sometimes bad actors use real, untouched photos but falsify their context.

And that can have really serious consequences.

For instance, this image of an election in Mexico in 2017 circulated online as a meme

claiming undocumented immigrants were voting in the nonexistent town of Battsville, Arizona.

Or this image of children sleeping in what looks like a cage at a detention facility

for undocumented children in 2014.

It was circulated widely in 2018 as controversy grew over policies for separating undocumented

migrant children and parents at the U.S. border.

Although the conditions were similar for many of the children being held in 2018, when the

photo went viral it was unaccompanied by its original context: the date.

And then once this mistake was revealed, it was used by many to dismiss the entire controversy

as “fake news.”

A study by the Stanford History Education Group has shown just how easy it can be for

people to let images and their context go unchallenged.

So, as you know from previous episodes, the Stanford History Education Group is affiliated

with this series.

They developed MediaWise, which is what this series is based on.

Anyway, during the Stanford History Education Group study, they showed 170 high school students

a photo from Imgur of these weird looking flowers.

The photo’s caption claimed that the flowers had “nuclear birth defects.”

Fukushima was in the photo title, implying they were from the Fukushima nuclear disaster

in Japan.

Despite no evidence that the photo actually showed these effects, or that radiation caused

the mutations, over 80 percent of the students did not question the source of the photo.

There wasn’t even any evidence to show the photo was taken in Japan!

In reality, these daisies are most likely the victims of a genetic mutation called “fascination”

that isn’t related to nuclear radiation in any way.

Bottom line: nature is really wild all by herself.

I mean, do I need to bring back the picture of the star-nosed mole?

I do.

Because it’s so easy to turn images into manipulation machines, when you encounter

a suspicious image online, it’s crucial to investigate who is behind it and whether

they are a reliable source.

We also must look for context, to be sure an image supports the claim being made.

Does the story, blog, or social media post where you encountered the image provide a

link?

Great!

Click it.

If you can get a reliable explanation of that photo and where it came from.

That can help you know if the image is reliable.

Is a caption provided?

Use your lateral reading skills to determine whether the context surrounding the image

is accurate.

But if the source sharing the photo doesn’t provide any context, or they provide a caption,

but no other reason to find that information credible, then maybe you can’t trust it.

But, there are online tools you can use to hunt down an image’s origin story.

Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.

OK, so it’s raining hard in your hometown and you just got one of those startling flash

flood warnings on your phone.

So you hop online to find the latest weather report and a friend has reposted this in your

news feed.

Just saw this on the highway.

Be careful out there, friends.

Oh my god, there’s a shark swimming around the floodwaters in your town.

That’s certainly terrifying -- if it’s true.

Before sharing it with anyone else you want to be sure that it is.

Your friend hasn’t provided any other context or tagged the photo’s location or anything.

She hasn’t said whether she took it or someone else did,

and isn’t responding to your texts.

So it’s time to do a Google reverse image search.

Quick reminder: Google is one of our sponsors for this series, but we also think they have

the strongest reverse image search engine.

If you’re looking for an alternative, TinEye is another popular one.

Right, so, if you’re using their Chrome browser, you can right click on an image and

select “Search Google for image.”

If you’re using a different browser, you can right click on an image and copy its URL.

Then you paste the URL into the search window at images.google.com.

Whoa there -- the search results for this shark photo are full of fact-checking sites

saying that this photo is a viral hoax.

It seems this photoshopped image makes the rounds every time there is a hurricane or

huge flood.

The shark has been “spotted” in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Irene, Florida during

Hurricane Irma, in Texas during Hurricane Harvey, New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy,

and in North Carolina during floods in 2015.

What a shark!

The original photo of this shark was captured in its natural habitat, off the coast of South

Africa.

But after someone photoshopped it into a highway setting,

plenty of social media posts have cited the image as “evidence” over the years.

Thanks, Thought Bubble.

You can use reverse image searches to check in on all kinds of photos.

Using what you know about finding reliable sources, you can then track down whether an

image has originated with a trustworthy source or whether it’s only been distributed on

unreliable sites.

And you can turn to fact checking organizations like Snopes and Politifact which are really

great at hunting down these hoaxes.

And then there’s videos, which can be just as powerful as images when it comes to providing

evidence.

Unfortunately, they can also be used to mislead.

For instance, a carefully edited clip can misrepresent how an event actually happened

or what someone actually said.

At least according to every villain on every reality TV show ever, that’s the entire

genre of reality TV.

It was just the /editing/ that made it /look/ like you were awkwardly breaking up with your

fiancée on national television, Arie.

But also, unedited videos can be posted alongside inaccurate information that claims footage

depicts one event when it really shows something completely different.

Like this clip of me saying “I have messed it up a lot in the past, hence, part of my

aforementioned nervousness.”

Now as it happens, that was about communicating news to fans about my books being adapted

into movies.

But it could be applied and adapted to other things, for instance, if someone said I was

talking about writing my books.

Or my taste in Polo shirts, which is excellent by the way.

You’d only understand what I was talking about if you saw the whole clip, but in another

context it could be almost anything you want it to be.

There is no text without context.

And videos can also be dramatically altered, too.

We don’t always think of videos as easy to change -- maybe by skilled filmmakers,

but not in the same way that we can easily use filters to alter our Instagrams.

But, if you’ve ever seen an episode of Bad Lip Reading, you’ll know that it’s getting

easier and easier to considerably alter a video, or even fabricate one from scratch.

And uploading and posting videos has never been easier.

Almost anyone with an internet connection can do it.

That’s why it’s important to know where a video came from, and who created it, and

whether it’s been altered before you believe what you see.

But the type of manipulated video that freaks me out personally the most is the deepfake.

Deep fake uses deep learning and artificial intelligence to create video images that can

be combined and superimposed onto existing videos.

So, for example, Nicholas Cage’s face can be grafted onto other actors’ faces to create

some really funny movie mashups.

Or, an impersonator can have their voice and facial movements convincingly woven into the

video of a president.

BuzzFeed, for instance, once made a video of President Obama saying things like “Killmonger

was right” to illustrate how deepfakes work.

And this is happening more and more.

The Belgian socialist party once created a video of President Trump saying “climate

change is fake.”

They said they weren’t trying to dupe anyone, but lots of commenters on the party’s Facebook

page did not know it wasn’t real.

Now you can certainly gain clues about a video’s validity by checking the source.

Is it an anonymous YouTube channel?

A stranger on Facebook?

Or a news source you trust?

But to determine for sure whether videos like these are real or fake, we need to read laterally.

Or watch laterally, I suppose.

Either way, open up a new tab and try to find where the video originally came from.

You might be able to do this by using a keyword search based on the content of the video to

see where it surfaces.

Like, in the case of the videos I just mentioned we could’ve searched Obama and Killmonger

or Trump, Belgium, and climate change.

And if the video you’re searching depicts an important event of some kind, you might

find it posted on several news sites.

Or if it’s a known hoax, it may show up on fact-checking sites.

And if the only place you find the video is on dubious sites or random social media posts,

it’s probably bogus.

But look, as technology advances and changing photos and videos gets easier and easier,

there will be more and more deep fakes, and it will be much harder to tell them apart

from reality.

That freaks me out, and it’s a reminder of how critical it is, especially for young

people, to learn how to evaluate the quality of information they encounter online.

Because without using our lateral reading skills, and looking for additional context

for images we encounter, we risk being duped by bad actors spreading misinformation.

And as I’ve talked about before, when the quality and reliability of our information

decreases, the quality and reliability of our decisions also decreases.

So that’s why we’re going to continue learning how to interrogate different types

of evidence next time. I'll see you then.