How to Spot AI-Generated Images and Fake News

AI tools can now create very realistic images and text. Combined with fast-moving social media, it's easier than ever for fake content to go viral. These checks help.

Spotting AI-generated images

• Hands and fingers: extra, missing or oddly shaped fingers are common clues.
• Text: signs, labels and writing may be garbled.
• Backgrounds: objects that blend into each other or don't make sense.
• Too perfect: overly smooth skin, glossy lighting, unnatural symmetry.
• Accessories: mismatched earrings, glasses or jewellery.

AI is improving quickly, so these clues won't always appear. Context matters more than any single detail.

Checking a story or image

1. Check the source: is it a known, reliable outlet?
2. Look for other reports: are trusted news sites saying the same?
3. Reverse image search: see where else an image appears and when it first appeared.
4. Check the date: old stories often resurface as "new".
5. Watch your emotions: content designed to make you angry or shocked spreads fastest.

Use fact-checkers

Independent fact-checking organisations regularly investigate viral claims. Searching the claim plus "fact check" often helps.