Digital Content Manipulation: How Easy Is It?

From news to memes to photos and videos, digital content has become the bread and butter of our favourite websites and social networks.

However, what many don’t realise is how easy it can be to create and manipulate this digital content thanks to the use of apps, or access to inspect the web’s source code, let alone the tools offered by artificial intelligence (AI), to capture fake evidence.

When we scroll through our social media feeds, we trust that what we see is genuine. But the reality is that behind every post, there is the possibility of manipulation. From simple photo retouching to altered videos with the help of artificial intelligence (the Deepfakes we discuss below), the line between what’s real and what’s fake is very blurry.

Manipulating digital content is not just an innocent game. It can have serious consequences on society, such as misinformation, fake news, and the spread of hoaxes.

It is essential that as social media users, we stay vigilant and question the truthfulness of the digital content we see online.

Deepfakes are a form of digital content manipulation that uses advanced artificial intelligence techniques to create fake videos, images, or audios that can be incredibly convincing and difficult to distinguish from the originals. This technology allows overlaying one person’s face onto another’s body in videos, or even creating entirely fake speeches and conversations using the voice and image of real individuals.

What distinguishes deepfakes from other forms of digital manipulation is their level of realism and the ease with which they can be created. By using deep learning algorithms and large datasets, deepfake generators can produce surprisingly accurate results in a short amount of time. This raises serious ethical and security concerns, as deepfakes can be used to spread misinformation, create fake news, extort individuals, or even manipulate elections.

Although deepfakes have potentially entertaining applications, such as creating parodies or imitation videos, their proliferation has sparked growing societal concern and has driven the search for solutions to detect and mitigate their negative impact.

The surprising thing is that you don’t need to be an expert in technology to manipulate digital content.

With access to readily available applications and software for any user with a mobile device, you can retouch an image, create a profile, modify the content of a post, a video, or edit any resource in a matter of minutes.

We’re not just talking about the famous Adobe Photoshop, which was more or less limited due to its access being licensed and paid for. There are websites like Fakedetail, which are freely accessible, where you can create completely fake profiles for any social network in just a few minutes with exactly the same look and feel as the original platform. In addition to the social network profile cover, you can create conversations, posts, chats, messages…

For example, a post from our @savetheproof account on X real vs. fake (improving the number of retweets and likes!) with Fakedetail:

Another way to easily modify the content of any website is by accessing the page’s code from your computer, where you can edit both the text and its images.

We invite you to watch this video on our YouTube channel, where you can see how simple it is to generate and create fake screenshots of the Casa de S.M. Rey’s profile on X (Twitter): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bp6HNAj39g

Given the prevalence of the possibility of digital content manipulation thanks to applications and artificial intelligence (AI), it is crucial to have reliable tools to verify the authenticity of information before it can be manipulated.

For this reason, you can use SaveTheProof for certifying evidence on web pages or social networks, as the content certificate provides a basis of trust and authenticity.

By certifying the content with SaveTheProof before it can be manipulated, legal challenges due to accusations of manipulation can be avoided, providing solid and reliable evidence in court.

In summary, we must be aware that manipulating digital content on social networks is very easy and is a reality we cannot ignore, so we must take measures together to promote authenticity and trust online.

Thank you very much for reading! Greetings from SaveTheProof!