Short-form video fakes in what are informative and friendly genres of social media are trending at a perceptible rate. A surprise when you look at the genres.
I am sure others have noticed it as well. Though long form videos do have them but not to the extent of short-form videos. Its is an interesting phenomenon and worth a look.
Short-form, vertical format videos have been increasing in popularity in the last 4 to 5 years. The well known platforms that host them are YouTube shorts, Instagram reels and the mother of all, Tik Tok.
Short-form as the name implies has a short duration from 5 to 90 seconds usually between 30 and 60 seconds. The shorter duration is a major factor for its popularity and success, as the new medium in social media. The vertical format tells a viewer looking at social media feeds, it is short and one can quickly see the whole content.
Controls on some but not on others
All Videos, both long and short-form are susceptible to fake, scripted and staged videos to mislead and misinform. The intention is to create a false incident or misinterpret a sensitive event for political purposes or just outright fraud for financial gain. Controls are mostly in platform run moderation teams, fact checking by the media and NGO watch-dogs.
Outside of politics, hate and mainstream crime, there is little or no scrutiny for lighter genres. This then is the focus of this post.
Below are the lighter genres but I am sure there are other genres as well.
- Health and supplements especially aimed at the elderly
- Rescue animals and pets
- Acts of kindness
- Military snippets of wars and weapons
These genres are considered benign or less likely to cause harm. When this format first became popular, content was heavily in the entertainment space. Comedy, skits, parodies, lip-syncing a song, dance shorts and memes. There was no need to build guard rails then.
Are they harmful?
No harm when the content is entertainment, providing factual information or sharing an experience or a view point. Which most contents are. However when a statement of alleged fact is made without any reference to verify, it’s a worry.
Videos are a powerful medium as there is sight and sound. In the wrong hands, carefully crafted impressive content can mislead and misinform for fraudulent and mischievous intent.
Here is an example of someone who calls himself a doctor, has no qualification in medicine or nutrition with no supporting scientific background claiming that seed cooking oil are bad. https://youtube.com/shorts/A68OafqleMA?si=nfRg1x_vIYdzz6p6. This short-form video is only 38 seconds and the visual content is impressive.
Content advising the elderly on unproven supplements and health practices is common. These then go viral and the myth is perpetuated. The regurgitation of old wives’ tales have now taken a renewed life.
Misrepresentation of an event or where the narrative does not match the visual content has consequences. Genuine content and content creators are negatively impacted if the genre they are in are plagued by false and fake content. Even an innocuous subject such as animals and pets have gone into this rabbit hole.
Short attention span is a thing
Short form video tackled the most significant limitation of long form videos – limited attention span.
YouTube and similar long form videos continues to provide exceptional content and value. It will remain the main platform for many genres. However people need to make time to watch them. And time is precious so short-form becomes the default format for viewers.
Content creators compete with other creators to grab the share of viewership. As more content creators started to surge in social media, the share of the pie began to shrink. Short form videos became an attractive option.
Lower effort and short duration are factors
Short form videos also became the favourite format to load real scenes of local dramatic incidents that one comes across. Fights, car crashes, road rage or weather phenomenons. Camera phones held in one hand are in vertical format. So little effort in posting it straightaway on social media. And the content usually spoke for itself. There was no need to storyboard or edit the content.
Everyone received the short form videos well. The phenomenal rise of Tik Tok speaks to it. I have covered the emergence of Tik Tok here. Tik Tok’s entire success is based wholly on short-form videos and nothing else.
As short form videos took off, more content creators realised its value. Less effort and cost to do and present something online of a much shorter duration became obvious. It also drew in people with ill intentions.
Interestingly content creators who previously used the long form videos to peddle the proverbial snake oil began to migrate to short form videos. Less costly to make.
How do you tell they are fake?
Rescue pets and animals genre is always attractive as people love animals. They are concerned about their welfare. Initially the content was fine. Then you start seeing mixed footage where it is no longer the same animal or even the same species. In some cases the footage is not even in the geography or culture associated with the story or message narrative. More and more of these stories seem to be far fetched.
One popular theme in this genre is rescued animals returned to the wild, bringing their newly born off-springs to visit the family that rescued them. And it not the same animal or even species and not the same surrounds. I have no doubt there are genuine cases but they are now overwhelmed by fake content. Which is really sad.
Contents on acts of kindness too started well too. Now many are clearly staged. Attractive visual footage, far fetched outcomes and fairy tale like. The emphasis is on good over evil. Plus good fortune falling on do-gooders.
More on fakes
Some even carry in small and semi transparent font at the bottom, the words “This is for educational purposes”. A disclaimer just in case someone calls them out for false content. How many do actually notice the not so apparent disclaimer.
Military snippets on past conflict events and weapons is a another popular and a niche genre. The might of modern military aircraft, warships and tanks are interesting.Increasingly more footage show the wrong equipment and even markings of country of origin are wrong.
Historical events such as aerial dogfights and firefights are embellished for dramatic effect. Video narrating the defection of a Chinese test pilot to Taiwan with the latest Chinese stealth fighter J31 which never happened is an example. Military defection with state of the art fighter aircraft is a guaranteed clickbait.
I am not even sure if one can rely on war and conflict event content anymore if one does not have subject background. Imagine a generation growing up being fed with false history and conflict events.
Motivation behind fake and doctored content
The main reason is to receive more views which translate into income from platforms. Higher viewership means platforms can charge an advertiser a higher rate. It also draws more advertisers to the platforms. This however is not the only reason.
The second reason is the promotion of products and services. In the health genre, unproven supplements, health gadgets and treatments. They don’t go thru the double blind tests or certified by medical authorities. Pedalled by unqualified people with the convenient honorific title of “Dr”.
Seeking donations to their cause is the third reason. Horses meant for the knackery or slaughterhouse are “rescued” is popular theme. It is now an established scam where content creators encourages viewers to send donation quickly to stop their slaughter.
Video clips at actual auction pens called “kill pens” are shown for dramatic effect. Bidding for these horses to give credibility that they are on site actually saving these horses. There is no independent audit to show if their claims are true.
Here is an article how these scam works. Google for the number of videos that are seeking donations for this particular cause.
Human dynamics
The fourth reason is a mix of human dynamics. Virtue signalling to dopamine addiction.Not financial gain, more a self esteem issue.
A need to seek social acceptance. You see this in online forums that allows readers to give reputation or “karma” points for good posts. This attracts some individuals to post concocted act-of-kindness stories, politically correct or virtue signalling post to receive points.
A form of self-validation of one’s perceived self worth. We see this in the publishing World where some authors do bulk purchase of their own books. The aim is to push their ratings up even if makes a loss.
So much so that in 1995, the popular book sales barometer, the New York Times Best Sellers List began carrying a dagger symbol next to a listed book indicating bulk purchase had occurred. The most famous and not surprising is Trump. Here is an interesting article on book bulk purchase.
Again in the realm of human dynamics, I suspect some content are singularly created to see how gullible people are. To have a laugh at their expense. And they do it again with fresh content to see if they can beat the previous viewership numbers.
What next?
Legislated controls with the primary onus on platforms to monitor would be a good start. They do have a moral obligation like all individuals and corporation.
Platforms can also use the wider audience as their eyes and ears to report breaches. Some they do for sensitive genres such a politics. I am aware that many platforms do deploy AI and image analysis tools to capture and stop taboo and more nefarious content. The same should be applied across all genres. More important as AI generated videos are rapidly emerging.
I guess if people do not realise the harm to society, then do not expect the legislators and the authorities to act. Platforms are unlikely to act as it will eat into their margins without regulatory oversight.
The biggest problem however is the gullible lot among us. See the number of views in many of these fakes. Its goes into the millions.
At the end of the day, much of the content in this medium is helpful. Makes us more aware of the World and our lives made richer. Just have to be careful and more discerning to avoid being misled.