Doctored videos can be shallowfakes, simple out-of-context cuts reused as misinformation
Evidence
Karen Rebelo, a fact-checker in Mumbai, decided to investigate the video. She noticed something unusual. At the end of the clip, the boys are joined by two girls who are wearing headscarves that don’t appear to be of Indian origin. The style was suggestive of an Islamic country. Rebelo decided to go down the rabbit hole, tracing the origins of the video on YouTube, where she stumbled upon a longer version. Here, the motorcycle returns, stops, and lowers the boy while the youngsters celebrate the return of their friend. The motorcyclist unfolds a banner for the camera that reads: ‘It takes only a moment to kidnap a child from the streets of Karachi.’ It turns out that the video was created in 2016 by a marketing firm to support an anti-kidnapping awareness campaign in Pakistan. As opposed to a sophisticated deepfake, this is known as a shallowfake: a simple video cut using basic video-editing software and presented completely out of context. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 355
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines ‘shallowfake’ against deepfake — a useful term distinction for misinformation writing.
- SEED: Angles on how anti-kidnapping PSAs get repurposed as panic fuel across national borders.
- XREF: connects to: Traditional media renarrativized decontextualized clips to defame PewDiePie falsely — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 208; Doctored-video fears can cause real violence when victims match the false profile — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 356; AI-generated videos may alter our perception of real experiences. — Joanna Stern, I Am Not a Robot- My Year Using AI to…, 1286 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Even misinformation experts fall for convincing fake news footage
#exemplifies(0.80) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 45 - Correcting misinformation may be ineffective because people continue using it
#qualifies(0.75) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 249 - AI-generated videos may alter our perception of real experiences.
#expands(0.72) — Joanna Stern, I Am Not a Robot- My Year Using AI to…, 1286