How can a simple user recognize a fake video

The Internet is a bottomless source of information. Unfortunately, it may not be completely true, and sometimes it is completely false. Today, such content is called fake. With the development of digital technologies, it became possible not only to lie in the news and fake images. Fake videos are no less common now and they are found at every step. How to recognize such "unscrupulous" products to an ordinary user who does not have special knowledge and experience?

Anyone can distinguish a fake from a real video. First of all, after seeing a suspicious video, you need to find out its source. The account or website on which it appeared can immediately give an accurate answer. If this is a recently appeared page in a social network, where there are only 1-2 videos of questionable content, then the probability of a "lime tree" is very high. At this point, content analysis can be stopped and appropriate conclusions can be drawn.

Statistics can be a good indicator. If a large number of views are indicated on the video hosting under the material, and the account has few subscribers, then there is a high probability of cheating. Therefore, it is worth reading the comments, perhaps one of the users has already figured out the cheaters and informed everyone about it.

Often the creators of fake videos do not really try and just give out old videos for new ones. Sometimes, in order to confuse the viewer, they embed excerpts from other videos into the material, sometimes quite real and fresh. Playing with context and insets, you can concoct quite convincing content.

You can recognize it by the places of "gluing", which are clearly visible when watching slow-motion video with magnification. Also, with such an analysis, it is not difficult to replace the replacement of pixels on individual frames, objects inserted into the video, and much more. The replaced background will also be clearly visible in this case. When magnified, it becomes frankly alien.

A fake video with a person's speech, for example, a politician, can be distinguished from the real one by the mismatch of lip movement with sound. But this phenomenon may be connected not with an attempt to put someone else's words into a person's mouth, but with purely technical moments. It happens that the sound in the video is slightly behind the video. And it also happens that the person in the video is voiced by superimposing his own voice separately. This is an ordinary case for cinema or interviews taken in very noisy places.

The triumph of digital technologies can be considered the imposition of masks on the face, or DeepFake (deepfake). It's almost like replacing a face in Photoshop, only it's done in motion. The effects created with the help of amateur programs and mobile applications have low reliability. Often the skin tone of the face differs from the tone of the neck. There are also more crude crafts, when the mask lags behind the person or does not move quite synchronously.

Professional video editing software helps to create very realistic fakes. But you will be able to recognize them if you watch the plot several times at a small or, conversely, increased speed.