Hey DUers... Melinda Gates did not donate $52 million to Kamala Harris, and Taylor Swift did not wear this shirt:

[demmiblue]

Please take a moment to investigate before kicking and recommending fake information. Usually several people in the thread will point it out when something is fake.

Also, can we PLEASE have a fake information option for the alert function. It is only getting worse.

[RockRaven]

1. That is such an obviously stitched-up pic too.

If you're going to get fooled, at least get fooled by good work product.

[demmiblue]

6. No kidding.

Those celebrities wearing fake t-shirts have been making the rounds forever.

And people still fall for them.

[UniqueUserName]

32. serious question

How can you tell it's fake?

I wish I could. I watched a cat video where the cats were sharing food. One cat would push the food dish to the other. And the other would respond in turn. I showed it to my sister and she immediately could tell that video had been reversed. I felt dumb.

Any pointers? BTW, in this instance I wouldn't have cared. I'm supporting Harris, hell or high water.

[JoseBalow]

38. This looks shopped. I can tell from some of the pixels

and from seeing quite a few shops in my time.

[UniqueUserName]

40. Do you have a youtube link that might train me?

I understand that the internet is going to flooded with fake videos, pictures, audio----- I am a generally trusting sort. I like having a positive opinion of people. But I would like to know how to better recognize fakes.

[JoseBalow]

42. I don't have a link

but maybe try one of these...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+to+spot+a+photoshopped+image

[TheRickles]

41. For starters, the sleeves around the shoulders and at the ends are ragged and stark in contrast to the background.

[UniqueUserName]

43. Not seeing it but. . .

. . .I readily admit that I have a hard time spotting fakes.

I do wish there were a youtube video of 15 minutes that could train me.

I believe y'all when you say you believe the picture to be fake, but that's more from a "Why would Taylor Swift alienate a potential revenue stream. . . " sort of thing. There is good reason to alienate jerks, but I don't know enough about Swift to postulate any assumptions.

[Bucky]

2. That's a great suggestion, if you're not a moderator

And shame on me for buying the Gates news without checking it

I think putting fact checking on the mods' menu might be adding too much, but I would REALLY love for there to be a way to flag false info.

I fear it'd become a source of unpleasant interactions however.

[mopinko]

12. there r no mods, only juries.

[Iggo]

17. What I'm asking is that we put fact checking on our OWN menus.

We’re grown-ups. We don’t need mods to fact check for us. (Good thing, too, since we haven’t had mods around here in years.)

A little bit of critical thinking, along with not being born yesterday, told me that the t-shirt pic, as with virtually all other celeb t-shirt pics on the internet, was fake.

I said it in the other thread, and I’ll say it again here: if you see a pic of a celeb wearing a t-shirt that says something that you like (or that you dislike), assume it’s ‘shopped until you find out different.

[Bucky]

19. There we 100% agree

[Iggo]

20. .

[Elessar Zappa]

3. I was wondering about the Swift shirt. It looked a bit fishy to me.

[mopinko]

13. i dont know y some of these celebs dont sue.

they’re all over the xitter. tons of michelle obama 1s, too.

[GreenWave]

4. Melinda French Gates did sink $2,000,000,000 into organizations trying to advance women.

One billion this year alone...

https://apnews.com/article/melinda-french-gates-donation-reproductive-women-rights-ab3512903cac247960d1fe03eabaeb89

[Bucky]

7. Unfortunately the one woman who needs advancement right now doesn't have any billionaires

At least not the sugar daddy types who fawn and grope all over Trump

[demmiblue]

10. Yes, I have seen that.

Good on her (and MacKenzie Scott)! Showing the world how it's done...

[LeftInTX]

5. Like the fake Dunkin Donuts owner..LOL

The "Dunkin Donuts" owner is a Democratic activist in Texas.

[LizBeth]

8. I am a sucker, but that is about ten years youngers so was wondering. BUT...

I wanted to tell my Swiftie story.

[intheflow]

9. Sure the Gates story is fake but the t-shirt is a meme.

Part of digital literacy in the 21st Century is knowing how to differentiate the two. Swift is definitely aligned with the shirt’s sentiment.

[demmiblue]

14. It is only a meme when it is presented as a meme.

And, really, it is more about random people trying to sell shirts. You see it in the replies to tweets all the time. Ad nauseam.

[intheflow]

25. Okay.

I hadn’t seen these posts on DU when I replied to you. Links to them would have put them in context. I saw the Swift pic as a stand-alone meme on Facebook, which is the context from which I replied.

[TwilightZone]

18. That doesn't make it any less false when presented as fact.

That's the point of the OP. Plenty of people took it to be a real picture.

[intheflow]

24. Hence the term "digital literacy."

[orange jar]

11. It's also worrying

because the Taylor photoshop pic is the exact same kind of photoshop that scam e-shops will use in their ads.

Like this, for example:

It really makes you worry about what else people might be falling for.

[mopinko]

15. these ppl shd sue.

[orange jar]

16. I wish they could,

but a vast majority of this stuff comes from people who live overseas, mostly from China or Vietnam (in my experience). They also tend to use fake or stolen info when they set up their websites, so there isn't really a way to penalize them unless their home country does so. It's very unfortunate.

[mopinko]

28. they cd sue eloon.

[Mosby]

21. You can't expect people to be tech experts.

Is this real? I have no idea.

Link to tweet

/mediaviewer

[Kaleva]

23. They can research though

Google search to see if others have determined the pic or whatever to be legit or not

[oldsoftie]

29. This IS real. Pence is the ONLY one who hasnt backtracked on his initial words.

I guess nearly getting hung has an impact on you
I applaud him for staying honest about it.

[Kaleva]

22. Agree

[SWBTATTReg]

26. As we all know, the Internet is a cesspool of fake information, but I like to think that most DUers are aware of this,

and do tag the fake articles pretty quickly, before they get out of hand.

[demmiblue]

30. One would think, but fake pics/stories make the front page of DU all the time.

For example, the fake Melinda Gates blurb is on the front page with close to 100 recs.

[SWBTATTReg]

31. My point, eh? This pic has already been deemed fake. I hope someone tagged the pic as a fake too.

[demmiblue]

34. True.

What I was getting at was even when someone points out the fakery, people still rec the threads and think that they are real (because they don’t look at the replies). When I first saw, and responded to, that particular thread it only had 30ish recs.

Ah well, not the first and won’t be the last!

[SWBTATTReg]

35. Yes, unfortunately. But as DUers, we on the alert, as well as the MIRT team, and tons of other DUers too.

I feel very reassured of this, knowing that all of us have our backs.

[oldsoftie]

27. These posts are all over twitter by people selling the shirts. Different actors/singers/etc

I know they're fake but I'd bet a lot dont.

[mahina]

33. Yes, we need a fake info option on alerts, and fast.

There’s a bs brigade in recent days.

[msfiddlestix]

36. That might be a fake shirt, but I want one!!

[niyad]

48. The shirt itself is not fake. I have seen it for sale on several websites,

although I was looking for something else, and could not tell you which sites. You may have to google it.

[msfiddlestix]

49. Good to know! Thanks! n/t

:

[SCantiGOP]

37. Yes, to the Fake alert function

No one should post anything from an outside source if they can’t take 60 seconds to verify it.

[twodogsbarking]

39. That's Becky.

[liberalla]

44. I fully support a fake info alert button. That is a great idea!

[Cheezoholic]

46. We ain't seen nothing yet. Its only gonna get better. Tech hardware has finally caught up with coding capabilities

All software, at it's core, is an interface between the hardware or machine that does something and a result someone want's to the hardware or machine to do. Literally up until the last 5 years, hardware has always been the bottleneck restricting the capabilities of the software, and the desired results of the users. We're at an inflection point now where hardware and software on a mass scale are finally on the same, or very close to it level.

Human's have always designed tools to make jobs easier, to create things beyond the limits of our 10 digits and the muscles attached and in a way to emulate ourselves, only better, stronger, faster. We may now have finally created "machines" to do what we do best.... lie

[niyad]

47. Okay, I do not know anything about spotting fakes, but. . . having read some

of the responses here, I enlarged the image and looked closely, and I could see a white outline all around the shirt. . reminded me of tailor's chalk when one is sewing. The shirt itself I have seen on different websites, but there is NO WAY I would wear an image of that felonius TRAITOR** on my person!

[demmiblue]

50. This is fake, too:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219263886

[AZSkiffyGeek]

51. There seems to be a common thread to these fake posts....

[mucifer]

52. Well that sucks . I believed it.