The combination of misleading news and visuals leads to unrest among the masses. Learn the role of visuals in misinformation and ways to prevent its spread.
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Misinformation is the biggest cause of unrest among the masses. It usually occurs due to false or fabricated news, which is often accompanied by fake images or visuals that add fuel to the fire. Most people believe in what they see instead of what they read or hear. Culprits take advantage of this phenomenon and use fabricated, manipulated, and edited images to misguide people.
Gone are the days when the statement “see it to believe it” was applicable. Nowadays, culprits who spread misinformation take advantage of this human nature and misguide people to serve their agenda. You may ask, “what can an average Joe do to avoid such an issue?” The answer is pretty simple. A little research can help you avoid a lot of discomfort.
However, people often overlook the importance of authenticating random news and accompanying visuals and fall victim to misinformation. This article discusses the role of fabricated or manipulated visuals in misinformation, especially the part they play in making people believe fake news. It also provides a few tips to help people avoid falling victim to fake visuals accompanying fabricated news.
Read on to learn more.
What is the Role of Visuals in Misinformation?
We live in a modern digital era where manipulating content is no longer challenging. Culprits aiming to gain swift popularity, create unrest among common people, and serve a specific agenda are often found spreading misinformation through textual and visual content. Here is how visuals play a pivotal role in misinformation.
People Tend to Believe Images
Back in the old days, people used to believe easily in written information. However, over time, they have realized that not every write-up they read is worth believing. The problem is that visuals have replaced written information. We live in the era of hybrid media, where people turn to social media platforms like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) to consume information and often overlook traditional news outlets.
Instead of written content, visuals have gained significant importance when it comes to information consumption. Most people don’t believe the written information they see but promptly trust visuals.
A recent study suggests that over 40% of image posts on Facebook feature fake or fabricated visuals. However, people not only believe them but also share them with others. This phenomenon leads to the swift spread of misleading news and information.
Tactical Use of Irrelevant Visuals with Misleading News
While you may think that misleading news content features modified pictures, most pictures are real. The only difference is that they are not related to the information that accompanies them. Such visuals are either dated or gathered from another place but used tactically with misleading information so that people end up believing them.
Considering this phenomenon, it is easy to say that culprits who want to create unrest or evoke anger or fear among commoners usually manipulate or fabricate visuals to make people trust the information they share online.
Most Potent Form of Misinformation
Whether you believe it or not, visuals have emerged as the most potent source of misinformation nowadays. It is indisputable that people pay attention to visuals before they read the written information accompanying them. Hence, if visuals resonate with the given information, commoners consider it a fact without even trying to consider the context, pay attention to the sources, or authenticate the visuals. This phenomenon can lead to serious consequences.
Unrest amongst the masses because of such misinformation, either because of fear or anger, may result in catastrophe. Culprits who want to create unrest in a particular community or country often use this tactic. Similarly, fake news and images are published together to serve particular political, religious, or other types of agenda. Hence, visuals are considered the most potent form of misinformation nowadays.
How to Identify News Accompanied by Fake Visuals?
Whether you are an average netizen or an influencer, you must take responsibility for identifying fake news and visuals and avoid sharing them further. You should also inform others about such misinformation to prevent it from becoming viral. You must know a few methods to identify fake visuals and fake news published on the web with the intention of spreading misinformation.
This section outlines a few methods to help you prevent the spread of misinformation because of fake news and fake visuals. Further details are given below.
1. Use the Reverse Image Search Method
This technique is also highly effective for identifying online misinformation accompanied by visuals. As mentioned earlier, culprits who want to spread misinformation often combine dated or irrelevant visuals with fabricated news or information to create unrest amongst commoners.
Whenever you see information that is hard to believe, weird, or suspicious, believing it promptly should be out of the question. The best way to authenticate the news you see online is to use the visual accompanying it to perform a search by image.
An image search tool capable of displaying results from various databases in one go can do this.
Relying on a single database may not help you get relevant results that can help you decide about the authenticity of suspicious information and accompanying visuals.
You can use an advanced reverse image search tool and search by image to save plenty of time and effort. Doing so will help you fetch results from all renowned databases in one go. This way, you will reach a conclusive decision about probable misinformation in less time.
2. Consider Motive and Bias
Fake news and accompanying images are often intended to falsely allege someone innocent. Hence, considering the motive and bias before sharing any piece of information can help you save someone innocent. Ask yourself a few about visuals attached to a speculated piece of news. Questions that can help you determine the motive and bias behind the visual attached to a suspicious piece of news are listed below.
- What was the reason to capture an image?
- What message or information does that image convey?
- What impact would that image create?
- Does that photo look misleading, provocative, or sensational?
- Does that image serve a particular purpose (most probably negative)?
- Who took that photo?
- Who shared it online?
When you try to answer these questions and evoke the investigator in yourself, you will surely identify fake or misleading visuals. Doing so will help you reach a conclusive decision about the authenticity and truthfulness of a particular piece of news.
3. Analyze Content and Quality
Sometimes, the best technique to identify misleading visuals leading to misinformation is analyzing their content and quality. Culprits who want to spread misinformation often manipulate or enhance images to make them worth believing for commoners. However, using a critical eye to analyze such visuals not only helps you identify misleading visuals and information but also enables you to prevent them from going viral.
Sometimes, an average naked human eye can identify such instances. In other cases, you may need a few image analysis tools to identify manipulated images. You should look for issues like blurring, pixelation, enhanced shadows, excessive colors, limited hue, and enhanced noise that may give a clue about the manipulation or enhancement.
There could be other signs of discrepancies in the suspicious visuals, including landmarks, logos, and faces.
4. Check the Metadata of Suspicious Images
In addition to the aforementioned techniques, you can also check the metadata of suspicious images. To do so, right-click on the image file and view details to review the metadata of doubtful images. Various types of metadata could help you identify edited or manipulated images.
- Technical Metadata
- Descriptive Metadata
- Administrative Metadata
- Exif Metadata
While other types of an image’s metadata can also help you in identifying the originality of a particular image accompanying suspicious information, Exif metadata is most valuable in this regard. Exif metadata of images also proves valuable in forensics and legal procedures.
You can also view the Exif metadata of a suspicious image that appears manipulated. If you view Exif tags of photoshop or any other similar editing software, then the image you have seen is most probably edited to mislead people.
In the End
Culprits who want to spread misinformation use fake news and visuals to misguide people and create unrest amongst the masses. However, you can prevent this from happening by showing a little responsibility before sharing any piece of news that appears suspicious and is accompanied by a misleading visual.
We have discussed the role of visuals in misinformation and also outlined a few methods to help you prevent the spread of fake news and images online. Hopefully, you will consider these techniques to prevent the spread of misinformation based on misleading visuals!
