What is real and what is fake? Play this spot-the-fake picture game?

[AmandaYVR]

DeviantArt by Rhiannon Woolf

This is cool

Half of it is actually real...

I love this one so much. So switsted

Gorgeous

Hahahaha

Okay, these are obviously not real. (Kinda too bad?) These are easy. But at least they're fun to look at. But there are many things you see online that are harder to discern. What is real? The internet is full of jokes, lies, disinformation, and misrepresentations.

So here's a game for you. Spot the fakes.

But first, I want to be clear. I absolutely hate the term 'fake news.' Because while there are many things which are fake, it should not be used as a catch-all for dismissing anything that people do not want to hear or accept. Not everything is fake. I do not want this to devolve into a rant about the term or concept. I have zero interest in a debate about left-right politics. I'm sick of it. It's eroding culture. So screw that. Instead, let's remind ourselves we all live on the same planet and actually have more in common than we are different, and let's have some fun together on this one.

I sucked at both quizzes!

Animals test
https://mediasmarts.ca/break-fake-quiz

News test
https://mediasmarts.ca/quiz/break-fake-news

We all have a responsibility to make sure something’s true before we trust it, and even worse, share it and propagate it. We need to think and be smarter.

Is it True?:

• Verify the source. Find the original. Is it trusted? Are they credible? What is their track record and history?
• Can you verify through multiple other sources? Just because something has been repeated, doesn't mean it's true. It's called 'viral' for a reason
• Use fact-checking tools like Snopes to see if it's been debunked
• Ask yourself, are you an early-adopter and is that influencing you? Do you want it to be true and it stops you from thinking critically? Critical thinking isn’t about doubting everything. It’s about learning how to ascertain truth.

https://mediasmarts.ca/break-fake

[Lliam]

I scored 5/8 on the photos and 7/8 on the news.

It's true that Photoshop can be used to make things that are totally fake look real. But even before that technology was available, news photos were (and still are) unreliable because they depend on which direction the camera was pointing and how the photos are cropped to leave out context and give false impressions. A cropped photo can even give the opposite impression of the reality.
There are lots of examples of the news, for example, showing videos of riots and claiming they were taken recently in one country when, in reality, they were taken years before in a different country. The news knows when it is lying, but it doesn't care. Even when they get busted, they rarely issue a retraction. And when they do, it's buried somewhere. They damage has already been done.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: mainstream media is dishonest. It's job is to propagandize. Of course it doesn't lie 100% of the time. A con requires a good deal of verifiable truth salted with fakery.

Almost all of msm is owned by 5 or 6 mega corporations who are engaged in incestuous relationships with each other. And controlling interest in every one of those corporations, from MSNBC to Fox to foreign outlets and major publications, is owned by the same few larger corporations, with Goldman Sachs and Blackrock being at the top of every list. Msm is CONTROLLED by global interests. Therefore, it has an agenda and works in unison to mislead and create false consensus.

On the other hand, on-line, non-msm is not controlled. It's true that there is a LOT of unreliable and fake information there (some of it disseminated by the same forces that control msm, as well as government "security agencies") but, on the other hand, it's the only place where factual, credible information can be found. There are actual journalists and researchers on line who do their honest best to disseminate truthful information. This drive the globalists crazy because their agenda requires total control of the narrative. That's why there are more and more calls for censorship and why major social media corporations work so hard to censor anything that conflicts with the desired, official narrative.

So I don't know which is worse, getting sucked into fake information on-line or believing mainstream media.

People need to exercise their their own ability to research, discern and reason. If they get led astray, they have the ability to cross check and revise their opinions as more information becomes available. Look at a source's qualifications, check their citations for what they claim, beware of their ideological biases, ask what they have to gain and where they get their funding.

Belief: trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something. It is gullible. Opinion, on the other hand, is based on open mindedness and asking questions. It can be revised. In the end, it's healthy to look at lots and lots of information and sort it out for yourself. All msm combined is essentially one source; a very unreliable source.

[clampfan101]

Oooh. That rabbit fox is darling. :)

[AmandaYVR]

Isn't it? 👏

[zeitgeist057]

While I appreciate the sentiment behind "Break the Fake", I believe it is a misguided enterprise. A more in depth look at the technology and cultural psychology we are facing is taken in the Joe Rogan podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OaTKaHKCAFg

One of the important points touched on is the continued advancement of deep fake technology, to the point that even recorded voice and video evidence is already dismissible as faked due to the technology. You could have a video of someone killing another person, and they could claim that it was faked. It could actually BE faked. You can make a video with someone else's head on your body, or your head on theirs. It certainly does add a lot to Bill Hader's Al Pacino and Schwarzenegger impressions:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/kjI-JaRWG7s

Point of all this being, you can research and fact check, look for actual footage and be a real detective, but more and more the truth is much harder to pin down, and in the end, it's much easier to assume almost everything has been packaged in some way, shape or form to influence and entice you.

[AmandaYVR]

"... and in the end, it's much easier to assume almost everything has been packaged in some way, shape or form to influence and entice you."
Yes, true. I do agree with your precise wording there.
Yep, heard about the deep fake stuff. It's really dangerous.
But in the same vein, the entire population needs to stop throwing out and dismissing and rebuking every single thing they see. That pessimism is fucking annoying and it in itself also erodes society. (But then you've got Trump fanatics, for ex., who believe everything that con man says.)
I do think we're in for a very, very, disturbing, and generally worse world. And 'we' (not me, you, etc.) created it. So I'll be dead, and others will have to live on the planet with all this bullshit. Sounds exhausting.

I'll watch the Joe Rogen vid some other time. I used to really like him. I'm losing some faith in his credibility nowadays. He's becoming somewhat of a prophet and can be a bit reckless.

[zeitgeist057]

It is a long video. One quote I found exceptionally harrowing, (Tristan Harris) "The people in Myanmar, who got persecuted and murdered, didn't have to be on Facebook in order for the fake information spread about them to impact them, for people to go after them..."

The same way information spread on Facebook doesn't have to be true, in order for it to cause people to start ideating about killing their fellow Americans in a civil war. (Where all the Trump and nationalism propaganda leads) The first step in killing another being is to create distance between yourself and "the other", even to the point of dehumanizing.

I don't know if the world will be better or worse, who knows what the future will bring? My concern is that most people are not self aware enough, and not aware (woke) enough in general to see the illusions that are pulled over their eyes.

[JosyJosy]

If God pressed the 'Randomize' button

[Anpu23]

Great post

[leagueavatarslut]

all real lol