Given the great media resonance and wide audience they reach, relevant events are more likely to generate both positive debate and opportunities for falsification. In this scenario, it is interesting to highlight the possible creation and dissemination of visual misinformation about an event and the response to it, which is translated into the number of sites that declare an image false. At the same time, the aim is to study whether the awareness of the phenomenon has increased over time and whether specific types of events are more subject to debunking.
Main Findings
Among the relevant events, those with no debunked false images - such as Ferguson Shooting, Palestinian Refugees in Syria, Israel Assault and others - are fewer in number than those with false images declared fake.
The number of debunked images has significantly increased through the years. In 2014 there are 31 images officially declared false, while in 2019 there are 82. In addition, 2019 was the year in which individual images were debunked more times than in any other year.
The images that have been debunked the most are those related to environmental catastrophes and disasters. Examples are the Amazon Fire, the Hurricane Harvey and the Hurricane Irma, which, involve many people through the media and online newspapers due to their catastrophic scale.
Most images have been debunked less than 16 times: this is the starting point for an exponential increase of the debunking phenomenon. Only 7 photos exceed this threshold: therefore only in rare cases many sites were active in declaring false the same image en masse.
The image declared false the most (45 times) is the one representing a shark on a highway linked to the Hurricane Harvey catastrophe, which is also one of the most absurd photos.
Protocol
