Fighting misinformation: How to keep from falling for fake news videos

A video claiming to show Haitian immigrants illegally voting for Kamala Harris in Georgia keeps getting shared as “news” all over X (formerly Twitter), even though it’s now been thoroughly debunked as fake and traced back to Russia. 

Across the social media world on Facebook, that same video appears with a disclaimer saying it was “manufactured by Russian influence actors.” That’s a step in the right direction, but is the damage already done? Millions of people think the video is real and will stick to that story no matter how much proof there is against it. 

The same goes for another fake video supposedly showing an election worker ripping up votes for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. These are far from the only full-blown hoax headlines and misleading videos to tarnish this impending election. They’re more like the appetizer at a buffet of chaos. Misinformation is everywhere. Do you know how to spot it? 

Who’s behind the fake videos? 

These are just the latest in a spate of viral videos U.S. intelligence officials say Russian-based trolls “create and amplify” to sow division among Americans in the lead-up to and after this week’s election. The F.B.I. issued a new warning on Friday, saying China and Iran are also involved in targeted disinformation this election. 

The more these countries can turn us against each other, the better. But can viral video propaganda undermine the security and confidence of an entire election? It already has. 

Remember that bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee finding that Russian meddling helped Trump win the 2016 presidential election and spurred polarization and division within American society? Yeah, me too. 

Why are so many of us falling for false information? 

I used to say that I wasn’t sure what the truth was unless I saw it with my own eyes. Now that AI-generated video and heavily manipulated images exist, I can’t even trust that anymore. 

Living in this "post-truth” news cycle, battling AI-fakes and separating truth from lies has never been more difficult, but there are a few handy tools to give you a leg up. 

More:Apple's insider leaks reveal the potential for a new AI fix

How can I tell if a video is AI-generated?

AI-generated gets better daily, but some red flags and dead giveaways remain. According to the MIT Media Lab, the most obvious telltale signs include; 

• Blinking and lip movements: examine them closer to see if they follow natural rhythms or seem out of sync. 
• Reflections in eyes and glasses: are they mismatched? Is there a reflection? Do they make visual sense? 
• Does the age of the skin match that of the eyes and hair?

In addition, hands are often still “off” in most AI videos. There are too many — or too few — fingers and other oddities. Usually, writing on billboards, street signs or even store names appears upside down, backward or misspelled. 

Here are a few more ways to spot fakes before you get duped by them:  

1.    Use a ready-made AI tool to spot the AI fakes

There are some great new tools for spotting AI-created text, photos and voice manipulation, but I haven’t found a solid fake-video vetting tool yet. Several are in the works, including Deepware Scanner and Free Deepfake Detector by Resemble. Still, I couldn’t get either to recognize the bogus videos I mentioned at the top of this story. 

I suspect we’ll have better fake-video-catching tools by this time next year.

The good news is that some text- and image-scanning apps do a decent job identifying AI creations:

Copy the text from any article and plug it into Copyleaks AI Detector. It tells you the likelihood that a human wrote it versus an AI author. It constantly trains on new AI models, so it’s hard to beat. Paste the same article text into another AI checker like QuillBot or GPTZero for an added layer of lie-busting.

• Images are getting easier to verify, too. Use SightEngine as your first line of defense. It detects images created by the most popular AI image generators like MidJourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and more. Then, if you want to see where else the image was used, upload it to TinEye. If it is published on reputable news sites and presented as fact, you can feel more comfortable believing what you see. 

2.    Look deeper than murky sources and your own bias:

Yes, the existence of the internet makes fake news spread faster and may be to blame for an uptick in political anxiety and even violence, but it’s also a powerful tool for truth. 

When you see a clickbait headline from a site you don’t recognize or an outrageous claim from a political pundit on social media, grab it and stick it straight into Google, Bing or the search engine of your choice. 

If the story behind the headline is accurate, you’ll see real news sites covering it — not Bob’s American Dream Blog. If it’s fake, quarantined only to social media sites, shared by your crazy Uncle Ralph without any link to a source, or already debunked, you can stop there. 

Never trust a single source, no matter how much you might want to believe what you see.

More:Don't want to Google it? These alternative search engines are worth exploring.

3.    Stop sharing something that gets a rise out of you: 

I’ve done it. You see something outrageous that you want to share around and shout from the rooftops, “see, I was right, you’re all nuts, and this one post proves it.” Sigh. If only that was the case. 

Don’t share it. Stop. Breathe. Fact-check. Beyond Googling it and hitting “News” to take you to the most likely sources, try a resource on a mission to separate fact from fiction, such as: 

• Politifact - Dedicated to researching, confirming and debunking any political news story that catches traction. 
• FactCheck.org - Deep-dives into murky news stories that live somewhere between fact and fiction. 
• Washington Post Fact Checker - Further analysis of volatile news stories with thorough research and truthfulness ratings. 
• Snopes - One of the most trusted sites for debunking fake news. Not specifically dedicated to politics, but features many political news stories. 

I love this trick because it’s so obvious yet so often ignored in our rush to say the online version of “I told you so.”

Misleading and false content often carries labels like BREAKING! and EXCLUSIVE! to get your attention and break down your guard. It’s laced with emotion and urgency. The same is true of posts with over-the-top images and eye-catching graphics. This visual eye candy gets you to share fast and without question. Odds are, the information hidden within a story like this is highly slanted at best and an outright lie, at worst. 

And when it comes to sources, dig as far back as possible to see where a story originated. Just because your favorite social media influencer shared it doesn’t make it true. In fact, some of them are being paid by foreign countries to spread lies too. 

Don’t be a tool for Russia or any other country that wants to wreak havoc on America from the inside-out. We’re so much better than that. 

Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech columnist and on-air contributor for "The Today Show.” The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected].