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| Image by biljast/Pixabay |
Our world is more connected than it has ever been. Thanks to social media, we are able to almost immediately bear witness to, and engage with, major global events from around the world in ways that were never possible before.
But a rise in fake news and doctored imagery means we cannot always trust what we see online.
A previous academic research article analysed the social media aftermath of Hurricane Sandy which caused more than 200 fatalities and widespread damage in the Caribbean and Mid-Atlantic coast of America in October 2012.
The study found that 1.7% of all images related to Hurricane Sandy that were uploaded to Twitter (now known as X) in the two weeks following the event were fake, due to having been doctored or not truly portraying events as they actually happened.
It also is thought there are 3.2 billion images alone uploaded to social media on a daily basis
Imagine if, during the next major global event, be it an election or a conflict between nations, 1.7% of images posted or shared across all social media platforms were fake.
But it’s not just global events when social media users are exposed to fake news. Previous research by ID Crypt Global found that disinformation actors are spreading an estimated 1.5 bn fake news posts per day across social media platforms.
In January 2024, the number of people using social media surpassed 5 billion* for the first time after an annual increase of 5.6%. This means roughly 60% of the global population are now using social media.
This means the spreading of fake news has never been a bigger threat and the potential impact of these fake images and news posts is profound and of global concern due to the astonishing reach of social media.
As such, any fake images that are uploaded have the potential to reach and influence enough people to genuinely alter global opinion in potentially disastrous ways on what is and isn’t true about any given topic or event.
CEO and Founder of ID Crypt Global, Lauren Wilson-Smith, commented: “Previous studies have found that in the aftermath of a global event 1.7% of images shared are fake and while this may not sound significant, it’s a considerable volume of disinformation given that 3.2 billion images are shared on social platforms each and every day.
It’s also fair to say that since these studies were conducted, the prevalence of spreading misinformation has only increased and so who knows what we can really trust as legitimate when it comes to the news we consume via social media.
The good news is that while the bad guys work to further deepfake capabilities, those on the side of good are working equally hard to find ways of instantly spotting a fake image from a real one.
We’re proud to be part of that fight and have recently launched our AMP tool that enables news and picture agencies to add a watermark to their original images when they publish them. If someone goes on to doctor that image and republish it, our tool will instantly flag it as suspicious, allowing people around the world to know what is real and what is not.”
