Here it comes. It didn’t take long. The unrest in the Middle East has already led to a flood of fake news, videos, and photos. Video of past battles are showing up as if they are current. Clips from video games are being passed off as current battles. And AI generated or modified videos and photos are being passed off as real.

Waves of untruths, fake news, and misinformation are being spewed out and shared virally. There isn’t a video clip, news heading, or photograph you can take for face value as being a truthful account of events that actually happened.

Except that some of it is real. Some of it is too real. Before it can be edited or censored, there will be some very graphic videos and images that will be spread across social media. Even respectable media sources will over-share overly violent clips, but on these sights there will be a pre-warning of what’s to come and some of the video will be blurred out to protect the audience or the victims, or both.

Warning or not, truth or untruth, we’ve entered an era where we, and our kids, are likely going to see things that never would have been shown just a few short years ago. No matter what social media you use, you’ll likely be exposed to graphic images too real to stomach, even if they are actually fake.

I don’t know what to worry about more, graphic images or fake images? What’s the worst bomb dropped, the truth bomb or the untruth bomb? Neither are good, and both are headed to a social media platform near you. In fact, they are already there.

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Update: Great article from Forbes on the topic of deepfakes spreading virally, “In A New Era Of Deepfakes, AI Makes Real News Anchors Report Fake Stories“.