That time I almost shared a fake tornado photo from 2013 during a storm last week

Caught myself about to repost a viral 'tornado' pic from my local weather group until I noticed the same watermark from a stock photo site I used in 2013. How do you guys quickly check if a disaster photo is actually from the current event?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_tessa19d ago

Oh man, the watermark thing is such a dead giveaway. I once almost shared a photo of a "huge sinkhole" that turned out to be a picture from a construction site in Arizona back in 2011. What worked for me was just zooming in on the faces of any people in the shot-if their clothes or hairstyles look like they're from five years ago, it's probably old. Also checking the timestamp on the original post, if they try to claim it's recent but the comments are all from 2014, that's a red flag.

king.wyatt19d ago

Ha no way, that's actually brilliant. I've never thought to check the comments for dates but that makes so much sense. I caught myself almost sharing a "viral" video of a dog doing math once and then realized the quality looked like it was shot on a potato from 2009. Now I just assume anything that looks too grainy or has that weird old Facebook filter on it is probably a decade old at this point lol.

emery199d ago

Lol right?? The dog math video woulda got me too honestly. I fell for one of those "hidden camera" videos that was supposed to be from a store but the clothes everyone wore looked super dated. I felt so dumb after. Now I look for stuff like the resolution and if the video has that weird yellowish tint from old phones. Also if people are using flip phones or holding their phones sideways to take a pic thats a huge giveaway lol. Its crazy how fast we forget what things looked like just a few years ago.