c/deep-fake-detectives

Ear shadows gave away a fake Biden clip before the face glitched

I kept seeing people focus on blinking or skin texture, but in that 3 minute speech video from last week, the ear shadows stayed fixed while his head turned 10 degrees, that broke the whole thing. Software like this still maps ears like stickers, so I check them before anything else now. Anyone else got a body part tell they trust more than the usual tells?

That 2016 Obama video everyone shared? The ear shadows gave it away

Ngl I stumbled on a breakdown from a forensics channel that compared ear shadow angles against the real press conference footage from the White House archives. The difference was 4 degrees across 12 frames, how do you even catch that without software? Has anyone else started checking ear geometry as their first move?

Last Tuesday exposed three fake news anchors in one afternoon

I was checking a clip from a local station in Cleveland and the anchor's ear lobes kept changing size between cuts. Ran it through a free open-source face detector and found mismatched skin texture on all three presenters. Anyone else seeing this pattern in regional news feeds lately?

Finally caught my own mistake after 2 years of debunking deepfakes

I always looked at eye movements and blinking to spot fakes. Then last week I watched a video of a politician giving a speech and the eyes looked perfect, but the shadow under his chin didn't match the light source from the window behind him. That one detail made me realize I had been ignoring lighting inconsistencies the whole time. Now I check skin reflections and shadow angles first. Has anyone else found a tell that changed how you look at these videos?

Hot take: I hit 40 deep fakes identified and it changed how I watch news

I started counting the fakes I found online after joining this group. Last night I hit exactly 40 videos I've spotted on my own. Most were on Twitter and YouTube, things like politicians saying stuff that never happened. The big one was a clip of a weather anchor that had weird eye blinks and a lip sync delay of about half a second. Anybody else keep a running tally of fakes you've caught?

Spotted a fake celebrity chef video that fooled my whole cooking group

I was at a potluck last Saturday in Portland and someone showed a video of Gordon Ramsay supposedly praising a new kitchen gadget, but the lighting on his face didn't match the background. A few people in the group were ready to buy it until I pointed out how his mouth movements were slightly off from the audio. Has anyone here spotted deep fakes used in fake product endorsements and what tells do you look for first?

Spotted a fake Biden speech video that got 50k views before I found the tells

I was scrolling YouTube last night and paused on a video of Biden giving a speech about infrastructure. The audio was synced perfectly but the lighting on his face didn't match the shadows from the podium. Has anyone else noticed that deep fakes often mess up shadow consistency?

Spent 45 minutes trying to debunk a deepfake of a local weatherman

Turns out the tell was in the reflection on his glasses - the clouds moved wrong. Has anyone else found a weird detail like that that took forever to notice?

Overheard a guy at the coffee shop say that video of the cat playing piano was totally real... I had to bite my tongue

That video of the mayor in Ohio last month turned out to have 3 different lip sync errors I noticed

I spotted it because the shadows on his tie kept shifting wrong between cuts, and when I slowed it down to half speed the mouth movements were off by about 4 frames, has anyone else caught similar tells in those quick-cut political clips?

Back in 2018, I had to pick between trusting my eyes or the audio in an old deep fake clip.

I chose the audio because the face looked smooth, but after rewatching it 3 times with the volume off, I caught the lip sync being off by half a second, so now I always mute first before checking facial details what method do you guys rely on first?

My uncle tried to tell me a deep fake of himself was real, but he forgot his own coffee order

Last week my uncle Bob sent me a video of himself giving a speech about investing in crypto. He was SO proud of it until I pointed out the guy in the video ordered a black coffee with two sugars at our last family brunch. Bob ALWAYS gets a latte with oat milk and gets MAD if they mess it up. He stared at me for a full minute and then said, "Oh no, they got my coffee wrong in the simulation." Has anyone else caught a deep fake by noticing a tiny detail the real person would NEVER do?

Remember when fake videos had obvious seams and bad lighting

Back in 2018 I was looking at those early deep fakes where Tom Cruise was supposedly doing magic tricks. The seams were so obvious you could spot them from across the room. Skin tones didn't match, the lighting was off, and the mouth movements were always a little behind the audio. I remember showing one to my dad and he laughed because the fake Tom blinked way too fast. Now these new videos have gotten so smooth I can barely tell sometimes even after staring at them for 10 minutes. Lately I've been sticking with the old method of checking the ears and hairline because those still seem to mess up the AI. Has anyone else noticed the newer fakes getting better at teeth and eye reflections though?

The thing most people miss in lip sync deepfakes is the teeth

Honestly, I was watching a viral video of a politician speaking last week and something felt off. Everyone in the comments was arguing about lighting and skin texture, but I zoomed in on the mouth area. The teeth in deepfakes always look kind of blurry or have weird gaps between them. Real people have slightly uneven teeth that catch light differently. I noticed this because I watch a lot of dash cam footage on my rig and you can see real teeth reflections in bad lighting. The fakes just don't get that right yet. Have any of you spotted a tell like that before that most people overlook?

That 'deep fake' of the mayor in Austin fooled me for a solid 10 minutes

I was watching a news clip someone sent me about the Austin mayor announcing new city policies. It looked so real, the lighting was perfect, and the facial movements seemed natural. Then I noticed the eyes didn't blink at the same rate as a normal person, and the audio had a tiny lag. That one video made me start checking every local politician clip frame by frame. How do you guys handle deep fakes of people you actually know the real voice of?

Hit 500 deep fakes analyzed and only 8 were real

Everyone talks about how AI is making fakes impossible to catch but honestly after reviewing 500 videos this year only 8 of them were actually deep fakes. The rest were just poorly lit or compressed real footage that people mislabeled. Has anyone else noticed the panic is way bigger than the actual problem?

Wasted $75 on a deep fake detection app that was basically useless

Ngl I bought that 'Deep Guard' app after seeing an ad and it flagged a real BBC news clip as fake. Has anyone else gotten tricked by a detection tool that just creates more confusion?

My mom sent me a deep fake of Tom Hanks selling life insurance and I almost bought it

Last Tuesday she claimed the video was 'incredibly real' and it actually had his mannerisms down perfectly until I noticed the lighting on his glasses didn't match the room. Has anyone else's relatives fallen for really convincing celebrity deep fakes?

I keep seeing people fall for the same audio glitch in deep fakes

Honestly, it's the way the voices clip at the end of words that gives it away every time. I spotted it in a recent viral video of a politician where the s sounds just cut off abruptly. Has anyone else noticed this tell in those quick-cut clips on social media?

Tried that 'check the eyes' trick everyone recommends for deepfakes and it failed on me

Saw that viral video of the CEO giving a speech and everyone said look at the blinking pattern. I stared at the eyes for like 5 minutes trying to catch the fake blink. Showed it to my buddy who does AI video work and he pointed out the reflection in a glass of water on the desk was completely wrong. The eyes were fine because they trained it on hours of that guy, but the reflection didn't match the room layout. Anyone else had a go-to method that just stopped working?

Paid $12 for a shady deep fake detection app and it just flagged every video as fake.

Total waste of money because the app just used a generic blur detection that caught nothing real, has anyone found a cheap tool that actually works for spotting AI faces?

Spent $60 on a deep fake detection course and it actually paid off already

I was scrolling through Facebook last week and saw a video of a city council member saying something wild about raising taxes. Something felt off about the mouth movements so I pulled up the stuff I learned from that online course I bought. The blinking pattern was all wrong and the skin texture looked too smooth in the shadows. I spent about 2 hours running it through free tools the course recommended and sure enough it was a fake. I sent my findings to the council member's office and they thanked me. That $60 course saved me from spreading misinformation to my neighborhood group. Has anyone else had luck with those cheap online detection classes or are most of them junk?

Stopped at a gas station in rural Kansas and their security monitor showed a weatherman whose mouth movements did not match the audio at all

Was I supposed to believe it was just a bad satellite signal or was that a deep fake demo playing on a loop for 15 minutes?

That $40 voice cloning software had me convinced it was my brother calling for help

I downloaded this program last week to mess around with. Tested it on a 30 second clip of my brother talking from a voicemail. The result was so good I honestly thought it was him on the phone when I played it back. What tipped me off was the breathing pattern - it just didn't pause in the right spots. Made me realize I've been way too trusting of phone calls from people I know.

That 'live' city council meeting from 3 weeks ago still gives me the creeps

I was watching a city council meeting from Austin streamed online, the one about the new zoning law. Something felt off about the mayor's blinking, it was too regular, like every 2 seconds on the dot. Then I noticed the audio didn't match her lip movements when she said 'public hearing.' I paused and scrubbed back 3 times, and on the third watch I saw a weird glitch around her ear where the background warped. I found out later the original meeting was from last year and they had stitched in a different mayor's face using AI. It's scary what they can do now to fake local government stuff. Has anyone else spotted these fakes in small town meetings or am I just being paranoid?