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  • Hi I'm John Green, and this is Crash Course: Navigating Digital Information.

  • So, images are incredibly powerful to human brains.

  • Like, I read and loved the first four Harry Potter books before seeing a Harry Potter

  • movie.

  • And I really liked the movie, but after watching it, I could never see my Harry Potter or Hermione

  • ever again--I saw only Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.

  • And also I learned that Hermione is pronounced Hermione.

  • And not Her-mee-own.

  • They say a picture is worth a thousand words -- and bythey” I mean the advertiser

  • who supposedly coined that idiom in the 1940s.

  • Photographs in particular feel real and objective to us, because they seem to capture a moment

  • of reality.

  • More than 150 years ago, Matthew Brady's iconic Civil War photographs were often staged,

  • for instance, his assistants would move corpses and change their postures to maximize the

  • images' visual power.

  • But while images have never been as reliable as they seem, this is especially true in the

  • era of photoshop.

  • In fact, consider the image you're looking at right now.

  • That flower is not actually here.

  • If you spend as much time online as I do, you spend a lot of it looking at images.

  • Sometimes those images are unedited, although even then choices are made--how to frame the

  • image, what to photograph, when and how to share it.

  • Other times, the images are obviously altered with bunny ear filters or meme text.

  • Sometimes images are altered in ways meant to fool us.

  • So how can we decipher what's real and what's not?

  • Well It's easy!

  • You can tell by looking at the pixels.

  • Meredith says that meme is so old that nobody is going to get the joke.

  • OK.

  • Roll the intro.

  • [intro]

  • So far during this series we've talked about how important it is to find out who's behind

  • information we learn online, why they're posting it, and whether the evidence is reliable.

  • And thanks to their power, images are a very common form of online evidence.

  • But just like data or text, image-based evidence can be relevant and reliable or irrelevant

  • and unreliable.

  • In order to make sense of our online surroundings it is critical to think carefully about whether

  • image-based evidence is trustworthy because we're used to thinking thatseeing is

  • believing.”

  • I means, special effects-laden movies are popular in part because they are so visually

  • thrilling--even though we know they aren't real, they look real, or at least adjacent

  • to real.

  • That is why, for instance, I found all five transformers films completely watchable despite

  • their lack ofyou know, plot, character and comprehensible worldbuilding and etc.

  • They also have that Shia LeBouef in them.

  • He's a fascinating character.

  • Don't do it Stan.

  • DON'T. Oh.

  • Hello Shia.

  • So, in movies, filmmakers depend partly on our ability to get lost in images--when we

  • watch a conversation between two people in a film, for instance, we rarely consider that

  • forty-five minutes elapsed between this shot and this one, because the camera and lights

  • had to be moved.

  • The willingness of the human brain to assume that images are real is consistently manipulated

  • by filmmakers, but also by other people.

  • Consider, for instance, this manipulated picture of mass shooting survivor and activist Emma

  • Gonzalez.

  • It's doctored to make her look like she was tearing up the U.S. Constitution instead

  • of the real picture she took with a gun-range target.

  • Or this one of President Trump supporters whose shirts were digitally altered to read

  • Make America White Againinstead of their actualMake America Great Again

  • shirts.

  • But images don't have to be altered to fools us, though.

  • Sometimes bad actors use real, untouched photos but falsify their context.

  • And that can have really serious consequences.

  • For instance, this image of an election in Mexico in 2017 circulated online as a meme

  • claiming undocumented immigrants were voting in the nonexistent town of Battsville, Arizona.

  • Or this image of children sleeping in what looks like a cage at a detention facility

  • for undocumented children in 2014.

  • It was circulated widely in 2018 as controversy grew over policies for separating undocumented

  • migrant children and parents at the U.S. border.

  • Although the conditions were similar for many of the children being held in 2018, when the

  • photo went viral it was unaccompanied by its original context: the date.

  • And then once this mistake was revealed, it was used by many to dismiss the entire controversy

  • asfake news.”

  • A study by the Stanford History Education Group has shown just how easy it can be for

  • people to let images and their context go unchallenged.

  • So, as you know from previous episodes, the Stanford History Education Group is affiliated

  • with this series.

  • They developed MediaWise, which is what this series is based on.

  • Anyway, during the Stanford History Education Group study, they showed 170 high school students

  • a photo from Imgur of these weird looking flowers.

  • The photo's caption claimed that the flowers hadnuclear birth defects.”

  • Fukushima was in the photo title, implying they were from the Fukushima nuclear disaster

  • in Japan.

  • Despite no evidence that the photo actually showed these effects, or that radiation caused

  • the mutations, over 80 percent of the students did not question the source of the photo.

  • There wasn't even any evidence to show the photo was taken in Japan!

  • In reality, these daisies are most likely the victims of a genetic mutation calledfascination

  • that isn't related to nuclear radiation in any way.

  • Bottom line: nature is really wild all by herself.

  • I mean, do I need to bring back the picture of the star-nosed mole?

  • I do.

  • Because it's so easy to turn images into manipulation machines, when you encounter

  • a suspicious image online, it's crucial to investigate who is behind it and whether

  • they are a reliable source.

  • We also must look for context, to be sure an image supports the claim being made.

  • Does the story, blog, or social media post where you encountered the image provide a

  • link?

  • Great!

  • Click it.

  • If you can get a reliable explanation of that photo and where it came from.

  • That can help you know if the image is reliable.

  • Is a caption provided?

  • Use your lateral reading skills to determine whether the context surrounding the image

  • is accurate.

  • But if the source sharing the photo doesn't provide any context, or they provide a caption,

  • but no other reason to find that information credible, then maybe you can't trust it.

  • But, there are online tools you can use to hunt down an image's origin story.

  • Let's go to the Thought Bubble.

  • OK, so it's raining hard in your hometown and you just got one of those startling flash

  • flood warnings on your phone.

  • So you hop online to find the latest weather report and a friend has reposted this in your

  • news feed.

  • Just saw this on the highway.

  • Be careful out there, friends.

  • Oh my god, there's a shark swimming around the floodwaters in your town.

  • That's certainly terrifying -- if it's true.

  • Before sharing it with anyone else you want to be sure that it is.

  • Your friend hasn't provided any other context or tagged the photo's location or anything.

  • She hasn't said whether she took it or someone else did,

  • and isn't responding to your texts.

  • So it's time to do a Google reverse image search.

  • Quick reminder: Google is one of our sponsors for this series, but we also think they have

  • the strongest reverse image search engine.

  • If you're looking for an alternative, TinEye is another popular one.

  • Right, so, if you're using their Chrome browser, you can right click on an image and

  • selectSearch Google for image.”

  • If you're using a different browser, you can right click on an image and copy its URL.

  • Then you paste the URL into the search window at images.google.com.

  • Whoa there -- the search results for this shark photo are full of fact-checking sites

  • saying that this photo is a viral hoax.

  • It seems this photoshopped image makes the rounds every time there is a hurricane or

  • huge flood.

  • The shark has beenspottedin Puerto Rico during Hurricane Irene, Florida during

  • Hurricane Irma, in Texas during Hurricane Harvey, New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy,

  • and in North Carolina during floods in 2015.

  • What a shark!

  • The original photo of this shark was captured in its natural habitat, off the coast of South

  • Africa.

  • But after someone photoshopped it into a highway setting,

  • plenty of social media posts have cited the image asevidenceover the years.

  • Thanks, Thought Bubble.

  • You can use reverse image searches to check in on all kinds of photos.

  • Using what you know about finding reliable sources, you can then track down whether an

  • image has originated with a trustworthy source or whether it's only been distributed on

  • unreliable sites.

  • And you can turn to fact checking organizations like Snopes and Politifact which are really

  • great at hunting down these hoaxes.

  • And then there's videos, which can be just as powerful as images when it comes to providing

  • evidence.

  • Unfortunately, they can also be used to mislead.

  • For instance, a carefully edited clip can misrepresent how an event actually happened

  • or what someone actually said.

  • At least according to every villain on every reality TV show ever, that's the entire

  • genre of reality TV.

  • It was just the /editing/ that made it /look/ like you were awkwardly breaking up with your

  • fiancée on national television, Arie.

  • But also, unedited videos can be posted alongside inaccurate information that claims footage

  • depicts one event when it really shows something completely different.

  • Like this clip of me saying “I have messed it up a lot in the past, hence, part of my

  • aforementioned nervousness.”

  • Now as it happens, that was about communicating news to fans about my books being adapted

  • into movies.

  • But it could be applied and adapted to other things, for instance, if someone said I was

  • talking about writing my books.

  • Or my taste in Polo shirts, which is excellent by the way.

  • You'd only understand what I was talking about if you saw the whole clip, but in another

  • context it could be almost anything you want it to be.

  • There is no text without context.

  • And videos can also be dramatically altered, too.

  • We don't always think of videos as easy to change -- maybe by skilled filmmakers,

  • but not in the same way that we can easily use filters to alter our Instagrams.

  • But, if you've ever seen an episode of Bad Lip Reading, you'll know that it's getting

  • easier and easier to considerably alter a video, or even fabricate one from scratch.

  • And uploading and posting videos has never been easier.

  • Almost anyone with an internet connection can do it.

  • That's why it's important to know where a video came from, and who created it, and

  • whether it's been altered before you believe what you see.

  • But the type of manipulated video that freaks me out personally the most is the deepfake.

  • Deep fake uses deep learning and artificial intelligence to create video images that can

  • be combined and superimposed onto existing videos.

  • So, for example, Nicholas Cage's face can be grafted onto other actors' faces to create

  • some really funny movie mashups.

  • Or, an impersonator can have their voice and facial movements convincingly woven into the

  • video of a president.

  • BuzzFeed, for instance, once made a video of President Obama saying things likeKillmonger

  • was rightto illustrate how deepfakes work.

  • And this is happening more and more.

  • The Belgian socialist party once created a video of President Trump sayingclimate

  • change is fake.”

  • They said they weren't trying to dupe anyone, but lots of commenters on the party's Facebook

  • page did not know it wasn't real.

  • Now you can certainly gain clues about a video's validity by checking the source.

  • Is it an anonymous YouTube channel?

  • A stranger on Facebook?

  • Or a news source you trust?

  • But to determine for sure whether videos like these are real or fake, we need to read laterally.

  • Or watch laterally, I suppose.

  • Either way, open up a new tab and try to find where the video originally came from.

  • You might be able to do this by using a keyword search based on the content of the video to

  • see where it surfaces.

  • Like, in the case of the videos I just mentioned we could've searched Obama and Killmonger

  • or Trump, Belgium, and climate change.

  • And if the video you're searching depicts an important event of some kind, you might

  • find it posted on several news sites.

  • Or if it's a known hoax, it may show up on fact-checking sites.

  • And if the only place you find the video is on dubious sites or random social media posts,

  • it's probably bogus.

  • But look, as technology advances and changing photos and videos gets easier and easier,

  • there will be more and more deep fakes, and it will be much harder to tell them apart

  • from reality.

  • That freaks me out, and it's a reminder of how critical it is, especially for young

  • people, to learn how to evaluate the quality of information they encounter online.

  • Because without using our lateral reading skills, and looking for additional context

  • for images we encounter, we risk being duped by bad actors spreading misinformation.

  • And as I've talked about before, when the quality and reliability of our information

  • decreases, the quality and reliability of our decisions also decreases.

  • So that's why we're going to continue learning how to interrogate different types

  • of evidence next time. I'll see you then.

Hi I'm John Green, and this is Crash Course: Navigating Digital Information.

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