Social media has been a beneficial tool for weather forecasters in the 21st century. It allows meteorologists to give the public advance warning about a dangerous weather event, and, once the event begins, news gatherers use social media to quickly share images and video of a damaging storm system.
Conversely, social media has also made it easier to spread a lie. All it takes is one person to find an old picture or video, rebrand it as current and share it to Facebook or Twitter. Then it has the potential to go viral all over again.
Hurricanes, tornadoes and winter storms give these fake photos a high-profile platform to resurface. The image above, posted after a deadly tornado hit the Tulsa, Oklahoma, metro area on March 25, 2015, seems to look real. But as soon as it began to make the rounds on social media, locals immediately knew it was a fake.
Before you share the next striking, unbelievable image during a severe weather event, we want you to know how to recognize a phony. Spotting fake photos isn’t easy, but it’s slightly simpler when abiding by one maxim: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. As for recycled weather photos that came from a past event, websites like Tineye and Google Image Search can help pick out reused images that were posted on the Internet long ago. To use Tineye or Google Image Search, just save the photo in question and upload it to either site. They will tell you if that photo has been previously shared on social media.
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