DEEPFAKESHow to Spot AI-generated Images and Online Content During the 2026 Primary Elections
Identifying falsified or digitally enhanced videos, photos and ads takes attention and awareness, but helpful tools are out there.
Misinformation and disinformation are especially common during election times, and the spread of AI-created content — such as the AI-generated video of Jasmine Crockett and John Cornyn dancing — has only made it harder to discern fact from fiction.
At The Texas Tribune, we do not use AI to create news content. Our AI policy prohibits publishing news photographs or videos created by or manipulated by generative AI. In cases where AI-generated images are the newsworthy subject of a story, we clearly label them as such with a watermark and caption. Social media platforms do not have such strict rules.
Here’s what you need to know if you spot a suspicious image, video or audio about elections, particularly on social networks.
Check the Source and the Context
There is no one solution for identifying false media content, and sometimes we can’t be 100% certain something was generated by AI, but some well-established methods of information verification still hold true.
If authenticity is in doubt, a good first step is to look for the source.
That leads to some questions:
Is the photo or video being shared with credit to a photographer or news agency?
● Is it from a credible news source?
● For videos, are there multiple angles of the event or similar footage from different news stations?
● Has the image or video been verified by experts?
If you don’t know where an image originated, you can run a reverse image search on Google. This shows whether it was previously published and whether reputable sources have confirmed its authenticity. For videos, you can run a reverse image search on a single frame in the sequence. Take a screenshot of the frame and use it in a reverse image search, just as you would with a regular image.
