You’re scrolling through your feed, and there it is: a video of a political candidate saying something absolutely outrageous. Your first thought is disbelief. Your second thought is a question that’s becoming more and more familiar in this strange digital age: “Wait, is that real, or is that AI?” Not long ago, these moments were easy to laugh off. We’d see a silly video of a celebrity in an impossible situation, or a photograph with someone’s hand bending in a way that made no anatomical sense, and we’d roll our eyes and say, “Nice try, AI.” It was a joke,…

The Viral Video and the Anatomy of Misinformation In an age when a single smartphone clip can travel across the world within minutes, the boundary between what is real and what is fabricated becomes dangerously thin. A recent wave of concern has swept through social media platforms, triggered by a short video that appears to show massive crowds gathering in the national capital. The footage flickers across timelines, accompanied by bold captions that link it to the latest round of political protests. Many viewers, already tense and anxious, accept it as immediate proof of something momentous happening on the streets.…