Three categories of  “fake” to watch out for in social media Misattribution Staged This is by far the most dominant A scene or event, or specific Technical manipulation challenge in human rights details of an incident, can research. Content is recycled be staged. For example, an Be mindful of the increased online on an ongoing basis, and armed group in Syria posed is shared with a wrong date, in a YouTube video, with location or attribution. what turned out to be toy guns. Example Example A highly graphic video was The “Syria Hero Boy Video” shared during post-election was a staged video, produced violence in the Ivory Coast in by a Norwegian filmmaker. 2011. However, the video was It is a textbook example several years old, and had of how looking at the already been shared in multiple source and digital footprint countries. A simple technique of the original uploader to detect old content is to should raise questions. do a reverse-image-search. The YouTube channel that This can also be done with first hosted the video was new the preview image of a video. and contained only this one, (See verification chapter highly dramatic video–a red flag. ease with which content, especially images, can be manipulated by cropping, erasing details or merging photos to misrepresent events. Example In 2013, officials from the province of Anhui, China released a doctored photo which showed a vice-mayor “hovering like a ghost over a puppet-sized elderly lady.” After a lot of online mockery, they admitted it had been the result of two merged photos and expressed “deep regret”. of this guide). 35