‘Cheap fakes,’ explained: How manipulated media hurts candidates

(NewsNation) — Out-of-context or minorly manipulated videos of notable celebrities, including politicians, are known as “cheap fakes” — and they’re taking social media by storm.

Last week, videos of President Joe Biden seemingly confused and stumbling around on stage took off on social media, despite their less-than-accurate portrayal of his behavior that night, according to the White House.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the string of altered videos, or “cheap fakes,” were being spread in bad faith by “right-wing critics of the president.”

Donald Trump’s campaign shared a meme that defined a “cheap fake” as “any unedited video of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline that the Biden administration does not want the public to see.”

But these pesky, misrepresentative videos are impacting both of America’s major party candidates. In early June, social media users shared a photo of Trump holding Donald Trump, Jr.’s hand at a rally from 2023 as alleged proof that the former president needed to be escorted offstage. 

What is a cheap fake?

A “cheap fake” is media that has been edited, altered or taken out of context with the use of conventional, easy-to-access technology such as Photoshop or other editing apps.

That includes altered videos with changes as simple as trimming, speeding or slowing the contents.

Unlike deepfakes, these edited videos and images are made using such affordable and common technology that they are both easy to make and effective to share online.

How to spot a cheap fake

To avoid mis- and disinformation this election season, it’s important to know the steps for spotting cheap fakes. They might create a strong emotional reaction or seem too funny to be true at first.

In that case, reverse Google image searching or using TinEye to find the original source of a photo will help confirm whether it’s a legitimate image. The same goes for videos — take a screenshot and reverse image search it to help find the origin of the quote or moment being shared.

Videos may be slowed down, sped up or taken out of context, so it’s imperative to listen to cadence and tone to make sure it sounds like a genuine human speaking.

If a voice is whiny, distorted or incredibly off-time, that’s an indication that further digging needs to happen.

Another way to spot a cheap fake is simply by looking at the social media comments. If a video is only getting responses from one party, or the comments seem to all be bots, it’s probably something to look into further.

For more resources on spotting manipulated media, click here.