Jordan Peele and Buzzfeed recently created a video of former President Barack Obama saying words that came from Peele to illustrate the danger of deepfakes.  The President, to the untrained eye, said things like “Ben Carson is in the sunken place” and “President Trump is a total and complete dips—” in his typical voice and cadence.  If you’re paying attention while watching, you can tell that something is weird about the video.  His voice is a bit off.  The image looks doctored.  And the statements are highly uncharacteristic of President Obama (he’s not a name caller like our current president) – he’s saying the kinds of things that he has been extremely careful not to say over his well-crafted, squeaky clean and somewhat scripted political career.

But for those who don’t have the time to scrutinize the video, or who are likely to believe negative things about President Obama, it’s very possible that they’d take this video as truth.  Today, most Americans are overwhelmed with their lives, which is why the speed of digital is so appealing.  We can scan the top news stories on our phones in two minutes rather than watching a 30 minute broadcast.  The digital age that we live in has made many of us unwilling to do our research on civic concerns, international policies, domestic laws, political leaders, and a whole host of other topics.  It has made us lazy.  We are no longer well read.  And, what’s worse, we immediately and regularly share misinformation to our networks with the speedy tools that we have at our disposal:  email, social media and text.   It’s the blind leading the blind.

I did this myself recently.  When news of actor Jussie Smollett’s “attack” was covered, I posted a message about it on my social media page.  I didn’t read the details of the story, just the headline, and I posted about my recent introduction to him and what a shame it was that this had happened.  Had I read the story thoroughly, the holes in Jussie’s narrative would have been obvious.  After all, I grew up in a poor section of Brooklyn, New York, where I’d seen just about every hustle in the book.  But because of a headline, I believed the story was true and immediately shared it.  This, combined with my lifelong knowledge of the bad behavior around race in America, my connection to Jussie, my interest in supporting POC’s and underdogs, my disdain with the MAGA crowd and their often racist shenanigans, and my busy life…well, I missed it.

Now imagine sharing the deepfake video of Obama with someone who doesn’t agree with his politics, who is not media savvy, who views the video on their phone while on line at the grocery store, who is a fan of Trump and maybe looking for a reason to harm someone.  Well, the results could be disastrous. 

Videos like Jordan Peele’s are very educational and should be shared.  For real deepfakes, I think that social media sites should clearly tag them as fakes and keep them up so that the public can begin learn again what’s real and what’s not.  I think the originators of such videos should be tracked down and prosecuted, if the video intends to do harm to our democracy or to the individuals featured.  If it’s my head on a talented dancer in a dance video, no harm no foul. 

One thing’s for sure.  We all have to be on point when consuming and sharing content.  Pay attention, do your research and educate your circle if something you come across is false.  The legitimate news media can play a huge role in this by outing fakes nationally.  We have to get back to truth vs. lies.  Not “my truth,” but THE truth.  We’ll be a better nation for it.