Check the source behind a convincing image

The original post summarized Adam Mosseri's concern that realistic media can no longer be assumed to be authentic. The practical question is how to evaluate an image when appearance alone is weak evidence.

Meta's published labeling approach uses detectable industry signals and disclosures to identify some AI-generated content. The company also describes limits to detection. An absent label should therefore not be treated as proof that an image came directly from a camera. ^[1]

Check provenance and context

Find the original uploader and the earliest available version. Check whether the caption supplies a place, date and source that can be corroborated. An authentic photo can still be misleading when attached to the wrong event.

For your own work, preserve original files and record how an image was created or edited. Explain synthetic scenes when that distinction matters to viewers. Keep the explanation beside the published asset instead of relying only on metadata that another platform may remove.

Identity, labels and context are useful evidence to combine. None of them should become a shortcut that replaces checking a consequential claim.