This article is part of The Globe’s initiative to cover disinformation and misinformation. E-mail us to share tips or feedback at disinfodesk@globeandmail.com.
In this regular update we examine some notable false and misleading stories that have been circulating online and the forces that shape the information we consume.
This week, we look at how the decline in local news invites misinformation and how to spot fake visual content in the coming federal election. We also touch on an AI tool that is reminiscent of Blade Runner.
How you can spot fake content in the next federal election
With Prime Minister Mark Carney expected to call a federal election soon, attention is focused on the risks fake and manipulated content can have on the campaign and key issues.
The Globe and Mail will cover topics as they arise. Here is a selection of tools and processes we use that you can also employ.
Images generated using artificial intelligence can appear very convincing. But they can have invisible clues to what system made them. A detection tool, like Hive for Chrome, will analyze an image and tell you how likely it is to be fake.
Screenshot of the Hive AI content detector applied to an AI-generated image of Kamala Harris.
Deepfake video and audio can be harder to spot. A deepfake is when a person’s face or voice is manipulated to make them appear to say or do something that never happened.
The Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector is another Chrome addon that can listen to audio in your browser and give an assessment if it’s genuine or not.
It’s important not to lose sight of “cheapfakes.” That’s content manipulated very simply, such as putting a fake caption on an existing image to make a false claim.
Conducting a reverse image search is a good way of spotting this type of fakery. A reverse image search looks for other instances of the same or similar images elsewhere online. That can show that a photo claimed to be shot today is actually from years ago, for example.
Google Lens, built into Chrome on mobile and desktop, allows for a quick reverse search for anything you see.
Check dubious information by conducting a web search for the claim with words such as fake, hoax or scam. Also, look for authoritative or original sources and be alert to the misleading use of real logos to make a claim appear more valid.
Finally, don’t share content you are suspicious of on social media. That can make that dubious image or claim appear more prominently on other people’s feeds. Your followers may also take what you post as validation it is genuine.
Decline in local news leaves space for misinformation
About 2½-million Canadians have only one or no local news outlets, leaving a gap quickly filled by social media and often with misinformation, according to a new report by The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
The centre tracked the loss of print media (either newspapers or online) since 2008 and found a net loss of 11 per cent of outlets. That amounts to about 25 print media outlets a year disappearing since 2014, with the major loss of 83 Metroland outlets in 2023.
The report found that areas with the least local news are suburbs of larger centres, such as the Greater Toronto Area, Greater Montreal and Metro Vancouver, where populations have grown but local news hasn’t kept pace or declined. This is true for public broadcasting as well as private outlets.
The news industry has also consolidated as companies bought up local outlets, which often resulted in significant reductions in local news programming and staff, the report said.
Logos of Metroland Media community newspapers in 2023.Megan Leach/The Canadian Press
Demonstration of stability.ai's Stable Virtual Camera system.
stability.ai