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Remember when fake news was easy to spot? I miss those days.
Back in 2016, I could spot a hoax a mile away just by checking the source. Now I see people sharing AI-generated images on Facebook that look so real, even I take a second look. Last week my cousin posted a photo of a three-headed deer from 'rural Ohio' and half our family believed it. I had to reverse image search it and found it was made with some free online tool. The problem is humans trust what they see more than what they read, and these new fakes play on that instinct. Has anyone else noticed older relatives getting tricked more often now? What do you do when the person sending it is someone you don't want to embarrass?
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jenny_lee8d ago
That "three-headed deer" one got my aunt too, now I just send back the Snopes link in a private message.
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fionafoster8d ago
My mother in law fell for the same three-headed deer thing and forwarded it to our whole family group chat saying "look what they found in Ohio!" lol. I just replied with a screenshot of the reverse image search results showing it was from an AI art subreddit from last March. The trick for me is doing it fast before too many people like it, and framing it like "oh weird, I think this is actually one of those AI things, look here's the original." That way it feels like you're helping them spot it rather than calling them out. I notice now I spend way more time fact checking images than I do articles because the images feel more real to our brains somehow.
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