The end of fake news

Part 1: The end of “fauxtography”?

For all the positive benefits the internet has brought — communications, connectivity, access to information and so on — it’s also spawned some downsides. More specifically, the rise of “fake news” and its equally disruptive cousins “misinformation” and “disinformation”. But perhaps more alarming is the speed at which fake news can spread. Sometimes it feels like “alternative facts” can travel half-way around the world, before the truth has even got its socks on.

As we’ve seen in recent years, the spidery hand of purposely crafted, emotionally charged, misleading or totally fabricated fake information has been used to devastating effect. To influence elections. To fuel conspiracy theories. To incite extreme views. And to erode trust in previously revered public institutions and processes.

But fake news isn’t new, particularly when it comes to images. Stalin’s Soviet regime regularly retouched photos to remove those who’d fallen out of favour, while a saddled Mussolini famously removed a horse handler from a picture to make himself appear more heroic. And in a world awash with fake news, it’s easy to claim images as fake, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did in Bucha, Ukraine recently — even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Of course, attempts to tamper with reality can backfire as it did when Downing Street photoshopped a remembrance poppy onto UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s lapel. Though harmless in the big scheme of things, the backlash in this case was swift and scathing. Often though, revealing fake news for what it is takes time, at which point it may have spread far and wide and the damage been done.

But what has blockchain got to do with all of this? Or more specifically, how can blockchain technology help combat the dearth of fake news? Well, blockchain’s unique attributes make it an ideal solution for creating an instant, tamper-proof way for anyone to register and prove and verify the age and provenance of, among other things, images, files and documents.

Putting “truth” in the picture

If you have the wherewithal, it’s actually pretty simple and straightforward to do. In fact, it took only a few days for the Concordium team to get a simple working service up and running, (we recommend you give it a go). So anyone taking a photo can immediately register it on our blockchain and verify it’s provenance and authenticity if there are questions about whether it’s been tampered with in any way in future.

It’s “drag and drop” functionality is incredibly easy to use. You just drag your image into the box to create a hash of the content, which is then finalised and registered on the blockchain almost instantly. At a later date, you can then check to see if registered images have been tampered with in any way. It hits a unique sweet spot by being both tamper-proof and easy to access, because the Concordium blockchain is an open, decentralised system. This also means anyone can immediately and directly check an image’s veracity later on.

Even better, because it’s so small-scale you don’t even need a Concordium account or any CCDs to register your photos. In other words, Concordium will offer this service for free.

It’s also worth noting that there’s no trace of the actual image or file on the blockchain and it’s not publicly available. Instead, it’s like a fingerprint to demonstrate the trustworthiness of the image’s originality.

Imagine how easier this would be if, when you upload your photos or documents to the iCloud, Dropbox, or some other designated file storage or back-up system, it automatically registered them on the blockchain? So in effect, you’d piggyback off already widely used software.

Next time…

In Part 2 of this article, we’ll be looking at how blockchain can be used to verify and timestamp an original document or contract, for example, for recording minutes of public and private meetings. In the meantime, give our simple service a go using an image of your own. Or automate the registrations by integrating to our API. We’d love to hear about your application for the service.

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