How to Spot a Deepfake Without Even Watching the Video

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, and honestly, there was no way to tell they were deepfakes just by looking at them. Should we be worried? Are we now living in a world where anything can be faked?

I mean, yes, but we have been for years. For comparison, think about photoshopped images. Sure, a bad one can be obvious. But normally we don’t scrutinize photos to figure out whether they’ve been altered. Instead, we’re just aware that it happens pretty commonly. Do you need to even look at a celebrity magazine cover to know the photo is probably altered? You do not.