[Image ID: six gifs of Brennan Lee Mulligan’s interview with Junkee. Brennan’s speech is captured through subtitles: “When everybody gets to a point of cynicism - perhaps even like deserved cynicism in some ways -” | “They start to go ‘ah, everything’s a lie.’ And once you start to say ‘everything’s a lie’,” | “You actually become the most gullible person on the planet. ‘Cause you no longer recognize truth, right?” | “You just sort of dismiss with this broad brush everything that’s going on. So I think the trick is, consume-” | “Consume journalism, consume information; consume it from the people you trust.” | “Keep an eye on the people you don’t trust, just to see what they’re saying.”]
I know for the past few days I’ve been blogging about how bleak the future is with AI and mis/disinformation. But I suppose one can always trust Brennan Lee Mulligan to give me a gut punch full of reality and humanity and remind me of ways to keep hoping and fighting for the future.
Folks in the activism scene may be more familiar with Timothy David Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (published in 2017, incredibly relevant in 2025). This exact point is made in his book:
10. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. (source)
Absolute skepticism and total distrust encourage epistemic paralysis and erode action. To reject all information is downright foolish.
To keep our heads up, we have no choice but to combat the swarm of (sometimes false) content and learn how to find sources that we trust. To actively invest in people who produce content with integrity, so the good work can continue to exist. It’s tough work (and costly work). These kinds of products may not even thrive on the transient content virality machines that are social media platforms, but they are important, quality work.
Aside from Brennan’s point about consuming information that you can identify as trustworthy, it’s also about fostering the skills and ability to do so & being aware of your own habits in consumption. A degree of it is mediated by the platform design, but another is made by your everyday choice.
How are you choosing to fight against these systems and designs to carve out a space for your own intentions?
(He attributed the saying as an insight from others, but I didn’t manage to locate the original quote - maybe it is from Timothy David Snyder. If anyone knows the exact reference, feel free to DM and let me know!)
Sharing some resources under Read More!
Here are a few resources that I've stumbled upon! Feel free to reblog with more websites/programs you find useful
On AI photos/videos:
This guy on YouTube makes really good shorts on spotting AI content: @showtoolsai
I haven't fully explored this, but it looks really good: AI fact-checking tools by Journalist's Toolbox
r/isthisAI is one that I visit frequently to make sure that I can practice AI spotting skills
On finding journalism:
GroundNews is good for comparing left/right-wing leaning contents
I'm not certain about US, but it seems Patch Media is an aggregator of local reports. LocalWiki might also be good. Though I've never used either of them before
For Canadian folks, Canada has a Local Journalism Initiative, which funds a list of radio and news stations (e.g., 2023-2024 list)
Generally, look for universities, community centers, and public libraries.
On social media and platform design:
Komodo's article is good for a basic breakdown of Tiktok, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit's design
General info on dark patterns
If you want to look for actual journal papers on human interaction and the way platforms are intentionally designed, search for "critical digital literacy"
Other resources on human connection and habits with social media:
Take Control Guides by the Center for Humane Technology
If you're trying to help others transition away from social media traps (which, honestly, social media's sticky design enforces doomstrolling so much that I need to actually do this), this one from Media Smarts is pretty good
Consequences of self-censorship: social cooling
Data Detox Kit is another great toolbox that's very general and relevant (and it has tips on protecting privacy!)
[Image ID: six gifs of Brennan Lee Mulligan’s interview with Junkee. Brennan’s speech is captured through subtitles: “When everybody gets to a point of cynicism - perhaps even like deserved cynicism in some ways -” | “They start to go ‘ah, everything’s a lie.’ And once you start to say ‘everything’s a lie’,” | “You actually become the most gullible person on the planet. ‘Cause you no longer recognize truth, right?” | “You just sort of dismiss with this broad brush everything that’s going on. So I think the trick is, consume-” | “Consume journalism, consume information; consume it from the people you trust.” | “Keep an eye on the people you don’t trust, just to see what they’re saying.”]
[Image ID: a hand-drawn digital art that shows a hand holding a phone, taking a picture. The table is full of diverse dishes, but what is captured on the screen are monotonous dishes of fish in an eerie red colour.]
Virality is quick and artificial. Truth is flattened into headlines. Doom scrolling is the absorption of mindless information rather than retention, transformation, and creation. Commodification of every fibre of living, made for convenient consumption.
Can you remember the last two hours of your life?
The same influencer tone, the same seven topics, the same three apps. Endless scrolling of the pages to keep the eyes glued. Like, share, comment, and follow. The most popular is fed to you on a spoon.
Big data says that you’d like this content. Let me feed you nothing but this content. Warp the reality into what is predicted to be “engaging”. Quantification of popularity packaged as a synonym of success. Numbers mistaken for credibility.
Fed on nothing but this monotony, the reproduction of the mind only echoes what the digital filter lets through.
Will you grieve when the songbirds sing of buzzing static?
It has that sort of weird, vintage fuzziness that previous versions of ChatGPT's outputs tend to have.
The cat is front-facing and almost posing for the photo. This alone cannot be used as the sole evidence, but it makes the image suspicious. Combined with the previous points, it's highly likely that this is AI.
The difference against a real image can be seen really easily once you compare it to a real image (original meme below).
[Video ID: a young man dancing on the floor hip hop style, in what seems like a cafeteria space filled with other similarly-aged people.]
Contains AI?
Yes, AI 🤖
Nope, all real 🧍
Unsure / view poll
Voting ended onDec 23, 2025
Answer and source under read more
[ prev | x | next ]
Answer: AI
This is a very tricky one! It's very consistent with realistic movements and camera following. Filming makes contextual sense. Floor tiles are consistent. The smoothness of the dance moves can be explained by the flooring. Students in the background make sense, based on what can be seen. The chairs are a little weird, but I don't know every school's cafeteria design in the world.
BUT - the major giveaway here is the white text disappearing from the t-shirt. Look at the beginning and the end of the kid dancing. The text disappears!
The biggest issue: the hair next to her face merges into the helm.
The gauntlets do not match each other. The red symbols (heart/leaf) are different, as with smaller designs.
A sudden lack of outline inside the hair (next to her waist).
Lack of consistency in the pattern at the piece above her check (merging gold lines & changing width between lines) and at her waist.
The helm also looks weirdly off to me - there's something about the shape that seems tilted. This could be argued as a minor mistake from an artist, but together with other inconsistencies, it's certainly AI.
[Video ID: a video of two small, reddish mushrooms. A small amount of water is poured into the mushroom's inverse cap. The cap closes fully, and no water leaks out.]
Contains AI?
Yes, AI 🤖
Nope, all real 🧍
Unsure / view poll
Voting ended onDec 23, 2025
Answer and source under read more
[ prev | x | next ]
Answer: AI
How to spot it:
The physics is all wrong. With the amount of liquid poured, water should spill out when the cap closes.
The mushroom in the background behaves the same without stimulation.
Those familiar with mushrooms pointed out "the gills aren't uniform and don't go all the way to the cap. They also disappear as the mushroom encloses around the water and becomes smooth instead."
This is Lomanstraat in Amsterdam, shot with foreshortening. There may be some post-editing to make the colours more dramatic, but this is a real location that you can look up online. Google street view
Looking back, this is quite obviously AI. Missing bunnies, weird fuzziness, unnatural movement.
But to a lot of folks, this is the first time that they got duped. Me included.
I first stumbled on it late July, when I was scrolling through Instagram reels. I send it to my friends with lightning speed, then immediately feel a sense of betrayal as I see the chorus of “AI Ai AI” in the comments section of the reel. It’s not even the fact that AI is used, but the deep burning sense of hurt and horror.
The sense of joy was washed away so quickly; followed by the understanding that false narratives can now be so well-crafted that it is easy to fall for them. I remember sitting back and staring at the wall for a moment, realizing that, oh, I’m fucked. Folks make fun of “Facebook boomers” falling for stuff all the time. And now I’m the demographic falling for this new fae-
I need to learn how to spot them like second nature, lest I fall for them again. Because the bunnies feel like meters upon meters of sickly wet sand before an incoming tsunami. This one is benign, but what of the next, and the next, and the next?
When will fake photos be used to support lies? (It already happened.)
When will feigned voices be used for scam and fraud? (It already happened.)
When will falsified videos be used to sway politics? (It already happened.)
Spotting AI is becoming another skill that is critical to our lives, in a way that is forced upon us, out of necessity. Because you bet that I would be caught dead before supporting these troubling uses of The Machine that preys on blood and water.
So we learn to read the contents, treat visuals with a grain of salt until we come to our own conclusion. The fae has learned to count the fingers, fix the teeth. But there are other ways to identify it.
Keep up. Keep learning. Keep your head clear.
(I made a series of is-this-AI polls for fun. Access it here to see how sharp you are: [Link])
Tips on identifying AI under Read More ↓
YES! Love that you clicked this open. Look at you go! I love you already (muah).
AI has gotten so good in recent days. Nano Banana and Sora are two that come to mind first. They’re acing the spaghetti test, and I haven’t seen issues with fingers for months. Teeth is still a bit of a weak spot, but I’m seeing them less and less since videos often blur these small details during speech.
The following is a list of tips that I’ve compiled after spending months waddling in the r/isthisAI subreddit and discussing current (Nov/Dec 2025) weak spots that are usually persistent across generations. AI will improve, so this list will almost certainly become outdated. But this is a good start for photos and videos.
The AI artifact. A weird fuzziness and weird up-scaling that makes incoherent but relatively sharp patterns. Often in the background of photos or videos.
Strange blur at certain locations. AI logos are often removed by blurring the spot or by overlaying elements upon it. Not to be confused with interpolated frames or human editing. Some persistent blurs may be edited to remove in-video captions.
Numbers, letters, fonts. AI has gotten better at 'writing', but still messes up sometimes. ChatGPT has a pretty stable font when it generates letters. Fancier fonts are generally safe IF it is coherent and the strokes are continuous. AI is pretty bad at counting numbers in videos, such as the ticking time indicator in 'security videos'. However, people may edit in the correct numbers/letters.
Real life existence of elements. Brands need to be recognizable, posters must exist, and items/locations can sometimes be cross-referenced with real life (if you have strong detective skills). Otherwise, cross-check with similar, real items to see if all elements (e.g., buttons, handles, door hinges) exist, are positioned correctly, and are the right size.
Continuity. AI videos tend to mess up on movement, like people appearing or disappearing suddenly when they walk behind a structure. Photos sometimes have the same issue, such as one of the bars on a fence disappearing in the gaps created by someone's silhouette.
Direction and movement. Humans tend to be more or less front-facing in AI images. Complex camera angles and movements are usually harder to replicate since there's less data. Uncommon (but anatomically correct) poses are usually safe for the same reason. Similarly, smooth, consistently paced camera movements in 'authentic, day-to-day' captures are unnatural and a sign of AI.
Physics. AI videos where there's a lot of high-speed movements usually have physics that feel a bit 'off'. Watch out for contact points, weight, and how body parts move.
Dog-like behaviours. Dogs and cats make up a huge chunk of the animal dataset, which means that dog-like animals (e.g., wolves or coyotes) tend to be generated with common dog-like behaviours, like wagging tails. Even the bunny video above shows them hopping vertically, when natural bunny movements are mostly small, horizontal hops.
NEW! Google image ID. Google now applies SynthID, an invisible watermark, to its generated images. To check, take the suspicious image (or get a photo of it as clear as possible), and upload it to Google Gemini for it to check the existence of the watermark. (Yes, I'm also miffed that we need AI to check AI, but at least it exists.)
Timestamp. DALL-E 2, Stability AI's Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney came out in 2022, so photos should be examined if they are dated 2022 and onward. Sora came out in 2024, so be suspicious of videos from then on. With NanoBanana, which is especially good at photorealism, be very careful with images (and social media profiles) that are published after Nov 2025. That being said, I've seen plenty of videos where AI is used to extend the length, so the fact that a part of something existed in 2015 doesn't mean it's free from AI.
This list is most certainly not conclusive, and I know AI will be more and more realistic going forward under the current state of... events. But I hope that this will help folks be more critical and capable of examining what they consume.
Everything is a survival bias: you only notice what you've successfully noticed. If you want to fight it, you have to be able to identify it.
Good luck and go crush them. And remember, the ban button is free.
Do people even remember this? When everyone went omg haha the pope is slaying a designer puffer jacket lol
For the kids that were out of the loop, this was… 2 years ago? (gosh it feels like ages ago. time is broken.) This picture essentially went viral online. Reddit, Facebook, Tumblr, etc etc etc
And it’s so so fake.
The thing is, people shared it without factchecking (I did too). Cause why would you need to fact-check a funny meme, right? Plus, it’s real enough, it’s plausible enough to pass as something that would be reasonable to occur in real life. And there are so many notes/likes that, if it were fake, surely someone would’ve mentioned.
Anyways, my point is:
This is kind of crazy, right?
I mean, this was only two years ago. This was the canary in the mine, and everyone fell for this output from Midjourney. And it feels like this trend is becoming more and more common, where deepfakes are getting more realistic. Made to be fun, made to be palatable, made to be believable for the audience to consume without a care.
[Image source]
Most of us have seen this image floating around on Tumblr, but I do wonder just how much we’ve really internalized it. Because people don’t tend to do a double-take at things that align with their views. If something is “believable”, if it suits the narrative enough, we don’t take a second look. What goes under scrutiny is only what we already feel skeptical of.
This kind of echo chamber is only going to get worse as AI gets better, cranking out mis/disinformation faster than ever. Just a few weeks ago, AI videos pushing certain political stances ran rampant. And recently, there’s been deepfakes circulating during Hurricane Melissa, causing confusion and panic.
There is just no way this is ever quelling - the Pandora’s box is open, the genie is out. And while fact-checking and staying skeptical is more important than ever, it’s also getting increasingly difficult with the sheer volume of information we have to deal with online. It doesn’t help that most social media platforms encourage fast-paced consumption, like doom-scrolling.
This is just… how misinformation works now. It doesn’t even have to be perfectly made. It just has to fit the narrative and look ok enough for the two seconds you spend looking at it before scrolling.
I don’t know if people have seen this house hippo video but it’s such an oldie but a goodie.
Like, I don’t know if there’s any modern equivalent of this.
If there is, I’ve never seen one on the same scale as this before. Like, it was viral, it was believable even when it is ridiculous, it was fun. Teachers showed it in classrooms for years after it was released. We still talk about it in Canadian schools and I go “awww” at the concept every time I remember.
Versus now…
Like, yeah, we have YouTube and Reels and people really passionate about spreading healthy ways to use social media. But I’ve also never seen one PSA about deepface and AI and fake news. Nothing memorable or even whimsical.
Honestly, this is also at a time where we (arguably) need it most. Sora 2 is getting better by the minute and Reddit posts are infiltrated by bots. Dead internet theory is starting to sound more and more plausible. I saw kids looking at AI baby bird images that are completely falsified and they are unable to tell because they’ve never seen one of those bald baby bird photos before.
We worry about boomers falling for AI. But like, kids are too! They don’t have enough knowledge to know that something “looks off”, that an animal doesn’t move like that, that there is something eerie about the too-many-teeth in the mouth. When you lose the massive library of truth and populate it with slop, you effectively lose the ability to compare.
So… where does that leave us? Like, how come there isn’t anything about this kind of PSA’s?
