
How to Spot a Deepfake Without Even Watching the Video – Lifehacker
Actual Tom Cruise, for comparisonPhoto: Emmanuel Wong/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures (Getty Images)
Deepfakes are videos that glue one person’s face onto another’s body, making the former look like they’re saying or doing something that they never actually did—even if it’s something as harmless as Tom Cruise talking to the camera and hitting a golf ball. They’re hard to spot just from watching the video, but here’s the good news: you don’t actually have to watch the video to know you’ve encountered a deepfake.
The Tom Cruise deepfakes (a few brief videos posted to TikTok on an account called @deeptomcruise) were convincing because they applied Tom Cruise’s face to an actor who had already built a career as a Tom Cruise impersonator. These videos were professionally produced, a...