Exposing Hackers’ Tricks: Republicans Manipulate Videos to Smear Rivals
Republicans used misleading videos to attack Biden
"Republican officials and allies of Trump repeatedly tried to turn Biden’s Normandy visit into a highlight reel of senior moments by editing videos...an examination of video feeds from the events in Normandy, France, makes clear that the selected clips had been edited to present a particularly damaging — and often misleading picture." - Washington Post
How do hackers manipulate videos? How can you be on guard against deceptive videos and disinformation? We modified a short video clip of Trump with the free iMovie app to illustrate three simple dirty tricks trolls use to smear their rivals. This video exercise is only for educational purposes. Watch the original and manipulated videos.
Republican dirty tricks manipulate videos
"Deceptively edited videos — known as “cheap fakes” because they misrepresent events simply by manipulating video or audio, or by leaving out context — have become staples of Republican attacks against Biden. They are easier to make and disseminate than content generated by artificial intelligence and can quickly go viral, allowing Biden’s opponents to take innocuous moments and turn them into attacks on his mental acuity or physical fitness.
“Republicans have resorted to pathetically manipulating and distorting footage of President Biden because they can’t successfully attack his record of delivering results for the American people,” Mia Ehrenberg, a spokeswoman for Biden’s campaign, said in a statement." - Washington Post
Psychological inoculation
University of Cambridge psychologist Sander van der Linden has done a lot of work in the realm of what's known as "psychological inoculation," basically getting people to recognize how and why we're susceptible to misinformation as a way to make us less likely to believe it when we encounter it. He's the author of a new book called Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity.
Drawing an analogy to how vaccinations work, Van der Linden advocates exposing people to misinformation and showing how it's false as a way to help them spot and to reject misinformation in the wild. He calls it "prebunking" (as in debunking something before it happens). - NPR
TakeAway: Don't fall for Republican dirty tricks using manipulated videos. Understand how videos can be altered to deceive you.
Deepak
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