I saw a deepfake of my local mayor giving a speech about a new park, and I believed it for three days.
It happened at the diner near the truck stop in Terre Haute. I was having coffee and the guy next to me, another driver named Ray, showed me a video on his phone. It looked exactly like Mayor Jenkins announcing they were canceling the new playground project to fund road repairs. Ray said he got it from a neighborhood Facebook group. I was annoyed about the park and even mentioned it to my neighbor. Then, on Thursday, I saw the real mayor on the local news, talking about the playground opening next month. The video Ray had was a fake, and it was made really well. It made me realize I'll never just trust a video clip again, especially from some random link. How do you guys check if something's real online now?