“Anyone who has ever asked me for tips on content verification and debunking of fakes knows one of the first things I always mention is reverse image search. It’s one of the simplest and most powerful tools at your disposal.
This week provided another good example of how overlooked it is.” Eoghan mac Suibhne [@buileshuibhne] writing at Medium, with some great examples. Not just for journalists, but for everyone tuning in to the feeds from Baltimore (and New York, and Ferguson, and on and on) and sharing what moves you. Amplify truth.
The point, of course, is not whether these things happened or not. The point is that the tweets were not portraying what they purported to be. Worse, they used photos of real people and connected them to these acts. Tineye and Google image search provide browser add-ons, meaning these kinds of checks can be performed in seconds. Cultivate the habit — increased credibility is only a right-click away.
“Baltimore ‘looting’ tweets show importance of quick and easy image checks” [Medium]