I spent 6 months sharing fake disaster photos before a geologist friend stopped me

Back in April I saw a viral post about a huge sinkhole in Florida and shared it to my Facebook because it looked wild. My friend who works as a geologist in Tampa texted me 10 minutes later and said that photo has been circulating since 2018 and it was actually a construction site in China. He showed me how to reverse image search using Google Images right there and I felt like an idiot. Has anyone else found a quick trick to check if a photo is actually old or just being recycled?

2 comments

2 Comments

charlie_ellis2d ago

Honestly though who cares, it's still just a picture and doesn't change anything real.

the_joel2d ago

The thing is @charlie_ellis, pictures do change things when they turn into proof someone didn't want out there. Like, sure it's just pixels on a screen, but those pixels can end up costing people jobs or relationships. Kind of feels like saying a fire is just a flame - it's about what it starts, not what it is.