Fact Checking Images and Video

	Photos or Fauxtos? Has the image been manipulated or reused in a false story?
Use reverse image searching and image forensic tools to identify fakes or determine where the image originally came from.

Citizen Evidence Lab: Tool Box - Created by Amnesty International, the toolbox links to a variety of mostly free digital tools useful for verifying photos and videos depicting human rights abuses.

Reverse Image Searching

A 'reverse image' search will show you if the photo has appeared elsewhere online.  It can also show you similar images that may indicate that the photo is a mash-up of other images. Look for dates on the websites that contain the photo if your photo is about an event.

Google Images or Tineye.  These two sites work the same way: drag and drop an image, or type in its URL, to see which web pages contain the image.  You'll also see similar images.

Yandex - See which web pages contain an image, and view various resolutions of that image.  If your image is small, seeing a larger version may make smaller elements more visible.

Fact Checking Videos

Advanced Guide on Verifying Video Content - From the website of Bellingcat, a British-based group of citizen journalists who use open source software and social media to fact-check information.  How reliable is their work?  Read discussion/interview with Bellingcat founder Elliot Higgins in the Columbia Journalism Review and a profile in the New Yorker.

The Physics of Fake Videos - tips from Wired magazine.

Image Forensics

These digital forensics tools can help you identify when and how a photo or video was manipulated.

FotoForensics - Provides Error Level Analysis (ELA) of uploaded photos, showing what parts of the photo have been manipulated. Accuracy and level of detail depends on having a high-quality photo, as close to the original as possible. - very time an image is resaved, (rather than copied) detail is lost. Info on originals will also include metadata and may contain the date and GPS location.  Use a reverse image search to find the highest quality copy or the original.  FotoForensics tutorial.

YouTube DataViewer - Created by Amnesty International, it will show when a video was uploaded to Youtube and displays all thumbnails for the video, which you can use for a 'reverse image search'. 

Pic2Map - Locate and view your photos on Google Maps.  Depending on the brand and model of the camera; this site can identify camera settings and the date and time the image was taken.

Wikimapia Crowd-sourced version of Google Maps, featuring additional information......

The information above was pulled from the University of Georgia’s Library Resource page for student use.

University of Georgia GALILEO Library. “GALILEO@UGA Subject Guides: Fact Checking the News: Fact Checking

Organizations & Bias Raters.” GALILEO@UGA Subject Guides, University of Georgia, 13 June 2018, 4:45 PM,

guides.libs.uga.edu/c.php?g=685109.