Deepfakes and Fake News: Can We Still Trust What We See Online?

By Sara Nadi

Insights For Youth

Written By: Sara Nadi

July 21, 2026

Introduction

We live in a time when a video, a photo, or a voice recording can be faked so well that even experts struggle to tell it's not real. These fakes are called “deepfakes,” and they're created using artificial intelligence that studies real footage of a person and then generates new content that makes it look and sound like they said or did something they never actually did. This matters because so much of what we believe about the world now comes from screens — videos on TikTok, photos on Instagram, voice messages from “family members.” When any of that can be faked convincingly, it becomes harder to know what's true. In this article, readers will learn what deepfakes and fake news actually are, why they're spreading so fast, how they affect real people, and — most importantly — practical ways to tell fact from fiction online.

The Psychology Behind Engagement

People don't share things because they're true. They share things because they're shocking, emotional, or exciting. That's exactly why fake news travels faster than real news. Researchers who studied nearly 126,000 stories found that false stories reached far more people than true ones — the most-shared fake stories reached up to 100,000 people, while true stories rarely reached even 1,000 (SQ Magazine). Social media algorithms are built to show people content that keeps them scrolling, and outrage or fear keeps people scrolling longer than calm, boring facts do. Deepfakes plug directly into this system. A realistic fake video of a celebrity or politician saying something outrageous gets clicks before anyone has time to check if it's real. And once people believe something, even a later correction doesn't always undo the damage — the false idea often sticks.

The Scale of the Problem

Deepfakes are not a small, rare problem anymore. The number of deepfake videos and audio clips circulating online has grown from around 500,000 in 2023 to millions today, and the growth rate keeps climbing (SQ Magazine). It isn't just entertainment or pranks, either. Deepfakes have been used to impersonate business executives on video calls to steal money, to fake celebrities endorsing scam investments, and even to imitate a foreign minister in a real diplomatic phone call (Adaptive Security). What's more concerning is how bad humans are at spotting these fakes. A large analysis of 56 different studies found that people can only tell real from fake at about the same rate as flipping a coin (Digital Applied). In one major study, only a tiny fraction of participants — about 0.1% — correctly identified every real and fake clip they were shown, even though most people felt confident in their answers (SQ Magazine). This gap between how confident people feel and how accurate they actually are is part of what makes deepfakes so dangerous.

How to Protect Yourself: Spotting Fakes and Verifying Sources

The good news is that there are real, practical ways to protect yourself, even if no method is perfect. Watch for visual mistakes. Early deepfakes were easy to catch because they had strange details, like hands with too many fingers or mismatched glasses (Gulf News). Today's fakes are better, but experts still recommend checking small things: does the lighting and shadow on a person's face match the room around them? Do their lip movements line up exactly with the audio? Does their skin look unusually smooth or “plastic,” almost airbrushed (Gulf News)? In video, watch the background too — objects sometimes shift or distort in ways that wouldn't happen in real footage (OneCodeSoft).

That said, experts warn these tricks don't last forever. As one researcher put it, people keep learning “clues” to spot AI content, but the clues stop working as the technology improves (NPR). So visual checks should be a first step, not the only step. Check the source, not just the content. Before trusting or sharing something, ask: where did this come from? Is it posted by a verified news organization, or by an anonymous account? Reverse image search tools can help you find the original, unedited version of a photo or video to compare it against what you're seeing (ESET). Slow down before sharing. Fake content is often designed to make people feel a strong emotion — anger, fear, excitement — because that emotion makes people share first and think later. Making a habit of pausing on anything emotionally charged, especially if it lacks clear sourcing, is one of the simplest and most effective defenses (ESET).

Conclusion

Deepfakes and fake news aren't going away — if anything, the technology creating them is getting better every year, while most people's ability to detect them by eye alone is not. But that doesn't mean we're powerless. By slowing down, checking sources, watching for visual inconsistencies, and staying skeptical of anything designed to provoke a strong emotional reaction, we can protect ourselves and the people around us from being fooled. In a world where seeing is no longer automatically believing, media literacy isn't optional anymore — it's a basic life skill.

Works Cited (MLA Format)

“Deepfake Statistics 2026: Fraud and Detection Data.” Digital Applied, 4 July 2026, www.digitalapplied.com/blog/deepfake-statistics-2026-fraud-detection-data.

“Fake News Statistics 2026: Spread, Trust and AI Content Farms.” SQ Magazine, 11 May 2026, sqmagazine.co.uk/fake-news-statistics/.

“Deepfake Statistics 2026: Key Data for Security Leaders.” Adaptive Security, 26 June 2026, www.adaptivesecurity.com/blog/deepfake-statistics-2026-the-data-security-leaders-need-to-know.

“How to Detect Deepfakes: A Practical Guide to Spotting AI-Generated Misinformation.” ESET, 14 Aug. 2025, www.eset.com/blog/en/home-topics/cybersecurity-protection/how-to-detect-deepfakes/.

“Deepfake Detection Guide: 7 Ways to Spot AI-Generated Video.” OneCodeSoft, 20 Feb. 2026, onecodesoft.com/blogs/deepfake-detection-guide-7-ways-to-spot-ai-generated-video.

“How to Spot AI-Generated Deepfake Images.” Gulf News, gulfnews.com/technology/media/how-to-spot-ai-generated-deepfake-images-1.1711026898141.

Sundberg, Diane. “AI-Generated Images Are Everywhere. Here's How to Spot Them.” NPR, npr.org/2023/06/07/1180768459/how-to-identify-ai-generated-deepfake-images.