Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Video was key for WaPo's debunking of Project Veritas. How to handle easily doctored visuals?
Video was key for The Washington Post’s debunking of Project Veritas. But what will “proof” look like in an era of easily doctored visuals? via @NiemanLab
Link to tweet
Video was key for The Washington Post’s debunking of Project Veritas. But what will “proof” look like in an era of easily doctored visuals?
LINK: WWW.WASHINGTONPOST.COM | POSTED BY: CHRISTINE SCHMIDT | NOVEMBER 28, 2017
A confrontation in a Greek restaurant. Dueling camera-laden interviews in a parking lot.
These two scenes are at the heart of the Washington Post’s debunking of the claims of Jaime Phillips, a woman who appears to have been working with Project Veritas using secretly recorded footage to try to swindle the news organization’s reporters into publishing a fake story about Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore’s sexual harassment and assault history. But what do we do when we get to the point when we can’t tell if this sort of video is real?
The story-about-the-non-story rocked journalism Twitter yesterday, as the Post shared nearly 10 minutes of footage of reporter Stephanie McCrummen presenting Phillips with a printout of a GoFundme campaign to help her work against the mainstream media and other reporting that dismantled her claims. The article with the video noted that “when McCrummen put her purse near Phillips’ purse to block a possible camera, Phillips moved hers.” After James O’Keefe — the founder of Project Veritas. which has been criticized for using deceptive tactics and recorded interactions to embarrass its targets — tweeted an edited video of an encounter between himself and Post reporter Aaron Davis trying to ask him about Phillips, the Post published a non-segmented video of the meeting.
....
However, researchers have already shown that highly realistic doctored video spreading false content is not that far off. This summer, the University of Washington announced that its researchers had developed algorithms able to turn audio clips into a life-like lip-synced video of someone speaking those words — say, Barack Obama. (Days before, many were fooled by a photo of President Trump intently leaning in for a discussion with Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit, even though it never actually happened.)
LINK: WWW.WASHINGTONPOST.COM | POSTED BY: CHRISTINE SCHMIDT | NOVEMBER 28, 2017
A confrontation in a Greek restaurant. Dueling camera-laden interviews in a parking lot.
These two scenes are at the heart of the Washington Post’s debunking of the claims of Jaime Phillips, a woman who appears to have been working with Project Veritas using secretly recorded footage to try to swindle the news organization’s reporters into publishing a fake story about Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore’s sexual harassment and assault history. But what do we do when we get to the point when we can’t tell if this sort of video is real?
The story-about-the-non-story rocked journalism Twitter yesterday, as the Post shared nearly 10 minutes of footage of reporter Stephanie McCrummen presenting Phillips with a printout of a GoFundme campaign to help her work against the mainstream media and other reporting that dismantled her claims. The article with the video noted that “when McCrummen put her purse near Phillips’ purse to block a possible camera, Phillips moved hers.” After James O’Keefe — the founder of Project Veritas. which has been criticized for using deceptive tactics and recorded interactions to embarrass its targets — tweeted an edited video of an encounter between himself and Post reporter Aaron Davis trying to ask him about Phillips, the Post published a non-segmented video of the meeting.
....
However, researchers have already shown that highly realistic doctored video spreading false content is not that far off. This summer, the University of Washington announced that its researchers had developed algorithms able to turn audio clips into a life-like lip-synced video of someone speaking those words — say, Barack Obama. (Days before, many were fooled by a photo of President Trump intently leaning in for a discussion with Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit, even though it never actually happened.)