Disinformation, in all its forms, has risen to unprecedented levels since the start of the Coronavirus crisis. From scaremongering about the source and spread of the virus to fake treatments and sometimes highly dangerous ‘advice’ about how to deal with it, the internet is awash with misleading information often in the form of tempered videos.
Keeping people safe is the number one priority for the European Union and governments across the world, and being able to respond quickly and effectively to the spread of misinformation is key. The InVID WeVerify plugin, funded through the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, has already proved to be a vital tool in tackling COVID-19 related disinformation across Europe and beyond.
InVID WeVerify is a plugin that allows fact-checkers, journalists and any other interested users to quickly get contextual information about videos posted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube videos. It can also perform reverse image searches on many platforms and efficiently query them. It can fragment videos, to enhance and explore key frames and images through a magnifying lens, to read video and image metadata, to check media copyright licenses, and to apply forensic filters on still images, all of which are vital tools for anyone trying to check the authenticity and source of the material.
So far, the verification plugin has been downloaded more than 20.000 times from the Chrome store alone, and is being used by several media organizations around the world (including France, Portugal and the Netherlands in Europe as well as the USA and India) to debunk disinformation about the Coronavirus.
Examples of how the plugin is being used include:
- AFP fact-check of a 2011 video of ALDI sales repurposed as Coronavirus panic-buying
- AFTWA fact-check of a video taken from the series Pandemic, repurposed as to show alleged mass graves due to Coronavirus in Italy
- France24 fact-checking a video of a doctor collapsing due to hypoglycemia and repurposed as sickness caused by Coronavirus
- Canal 1 Colombia de-bunking a video of a woman claimed to be spreading the Coronavirus