Holly Friedel
hf004717@ohio.edu
Visual Images Lie
We like to think that when we see something with our own eyes, it's the truth. I know countless times I have looked at online drama between influencers, and because of one photo I am fully convinced that what I perceived in the image is what was happening at that time. Honestly, a good way to look at it too is looking at a family photo a mom posted on Facebook. Sure, everyone is smiling; little do you know they were all screaming at each other five seconds before the camera flashed. And I know, most of us are do not care about what was happening behind the scenes of a family picture, but because of high tech editing, artificial intelligence and more, the things that are important to us are falsified.
It is not just photos anymore that are insanely edited, an entire video can be changed and spread like wildfire. A perfect example is when the country said catholic school kids who wore their MAGA hats in front of Black Hebrew Israelis were racist. Later we find from an unedited clip, that the kids were trying to diffuse the harassment the Hebrew group was pouring onto bystanders, and ultimately it was all a large misunderstanding. It makes one look towards Film Theory and the idea of form versus content. Ultimately, it focuses on how the meaning of moving images in film connect to what is inside the footage, when in reality the way the moving images were selected and edited alters how it is perceived.
That being said, I just have learned about deep fakes. What are they? Basically, deep fakes are videos where face, body and voice can be altered so they appear to be someone else. Usually deep fakes are used to spread false information or put someone in a negative light. In this youtube video, Deep Fakes, we can see how easily it can be done. And how a lot of times, it is done with a political agenda. In the video, we see just how far it can go when they present how flowers in bloom and weather changes can be done with the software that creates deep fakes. Honestly, its scary. It makes me question any viral video that has aggressive views, and now, I may even sadly question a beautiful video of flowers in bloom.
Like I said previously, no one thinks something is falsified if they view with their own eyes. In a study by Penn State, 58% of people who viewed fake news video on their phone, believe it to be true. Versus 33% of the audience finding the story credible after reading the article. I think taking the time to actually dive into how to identify fake news made me sad and disappointed, and at the end of the day make me wish technology did not exist. Artificial intelligence even creates fake faces for companies to use as models and increase diversity, when sadly it is not a real person. So either do not take context of photos and videos too literally, or completely investigate what you are looking at if is something important to you.
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