How the WSJ is detecting fake video content

Francesco Marconi and Till Daldrup of The Wall Street Journal write for The Nieman Lab about how the newspaper is using technology to determine fake video content.

Marconi and Daldrup write, “If someone has sent in suspicious footage, a good first step is to try to contact the source. How did that person obtain it? Where and when was it filmed? Getting as much information as possible, asking for further proof of the claims, and then verifying is key.

“If the video is online and the uploader is unknown, other questions are worth exploring: Who allegedly filmed the footage? Who published and shared it, and with whom? Checking the metadata of the video or image with tools like InVID or other metadata viewers can provide answers.

“In addition to going through this process internally, we collaborate with content verification organizations such as Storyful and the Associated Press. This is a fast-moving landscape with emerging solutions appearing regularly in the market. For example, new tools including TruePic and Serelay use blockchain to authenticate photos. Regardless of the technology used, the humans in the newsroom are at the center of the process.

“‘Technology alone will not solve the problem,’ said Rajiv Pant, chief technology officer at the Journal. ‘The way to combat deepfakes is to augment humans with artificial intelligence tools.'”

Read more here.