Olivia Orf
oo373220@ohio.edu
Throughout my 22 years of living to this point, I have always been told "to see is to believe" and have heard the phrase "I'll believe it when I see it" more frequently than I could count in 10 lifetimes.
Photo courtesy of memegenerator
However, it seems that more and more often we find ourselves consuming information that we have neither seen nor believed in the past... and neglecting to question that.
Deepfakes are an extraordinary example of this — we may have seen or heard of a CEO speaking at that conference in town, a keynote speaker's now viral message from a college graduation or a televised presidential debate.
All of these have one thing in common that lead me to ask a question — would you be able to determine if it was truly that person speaking in a recorded video of said speech unless you yourself witnessed the speech in person?
As tempting as it might be to say,"yes, absolutely!" the answer is no. The number of Deepfakes we encounter on a daily basis is becoming normalized at an increasing rate.
This means that each person will have to, once again, realize that they must do their own research if they truly want unbiased answers. On top of that how much deeper we will have to dig to find accurate information, discerned only by reputable resources, journalists and news mediums.
Photo courtesy of The Journalists Resource
A 2017 article from The Journalists Resource speaks on fake news in multiple aspects and avenues and addresses how we as consumers play a role in spreading incorrect information, whether it is intentional or non.
These deepfakes specifically, in a world full of fake news, possess the power to completely degrade the already waning faith consumers have in digital imaging, news, and social media.
Photo courtesy of Pew Research Center
Social media leads us to Facebook, a giant of the social world.
23% of adults say they have shared fake news in some form, whether they knew it at the time or not. That is an overwhelming number for the amount of time we've been facing the next generation of fake news-ers and the technology they bring to the discussion.
Issues like deepfakes, fake news, and video/photo editing and altering are no thing of the past — there are now bigger, better ways to alter or create variations, "practical jokes" if you will, like these and to share them with the masses on the world wide web.
Learning to discern sources, utilize resources, and to engage in challenging discussions will teach us all to listen a little bit more, argue a little less, and be able to recognize things that are too good to be true, or too insane to seem rational.
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