Twitter has used its new “manipulated media” tag for the first time on an edited video of a speech by Joe Biden, according to BBC News. The tag, introduced on 5 March, tells readers when a picture or video has been “significantly altered or fabricated”. The footage was posted by by Dan Scavino, White House director of social media, and seemed to show Biden calling for people to vote for President Trump.
Twitter seems to be positively and actively pushing security and reducing the distribution of fake news. At a time when fake news can spread like wild fire, it is great to see the technology giants help to reduce its prevalence.
Forrester predicts that deepfakes could end up costing businesses millions of dollars in the coming years. Deepfakes can be very difficult to spot and are likely to be seen more and more as the USA elections heat up. To be offered guidance from social media about whether content has been tampered with will hopefully start to make people understand that manipulation is very much possible – and that seeing is not always believing.