NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Gay or Gandalf: A Faked T-Shirt Fools Many
Gay or Gandalf: A Faked T-Shirt Fools Many
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000758.html
Greetings. As if we really should need a reminder that in the Age of
Photoshop one must be very careful about trusting images on the Net,
yesterday the Web was abuzz with a photo of Sir Ian McKellen, marching
at a London protest against the visit of Pope Benedict
( http://bbc.in/cemlBn [BBC] ).
But the mere fact of his presence wasn't the only trigger for so much
attention, it was the t-shirt that he was apparently wearing. There,
amidst a group of protesters wearing "Some people are gay. Get over
it!" shirts, was Sir Ian, wearing the exact same style shirt, but his
read "I'm Gandalf and Magneto. Get over it!"
Wow. What a sense of humor! That's pretty gutsy. "Best T-Shirt
Ever!" flashed around the world endlessly in tweets, emails, and most
every other form of electronic communication. Observers commented at
length about McKellen's "amazing" t-shirt.
Except of course, there was no such shirt. It was a Photoshop job,
and in reality (as logic prevailing over emotion would have dictated),
McKellen was wearing a t-shirt with the same slogan as everyone else
in the protest group. Judging from comments around the Net, it's
clear that some people recognized this immediately. But it's also
obvious that a great many -- likely the vast majority forwarding the
image yesterday -- did not.
True, it was a pretty damn good Photoshop fraud. And yes, perhaps
it's not totally impossible to imagine that McKellen was provided with
a "special" shirt for the protest.
But logically, it didn't make a lot of sense for someone of Sir Ian's
character to play along with a stunt quite like that involving a cause
that he's known to feel very strongly about.
No real harm done by this particular episode. But it's an important
reminder nonetheless, since the next provocative photo that makes the
rounds may relate to a topic of great import with real consequences.
It doesn't take a wizard of Gandalf's stature to feign convincing
phantasms of faked photos.
False photo: http://bit.ly/crhA8U (Lauren's Blog)
Real photo: http://bit.ly/dfCJEM (Lauren's Blog)
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com)
http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
Co-Founder, PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility): http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad (Network Neutrality Squad): http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP (Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance):
http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://bit.ly/lauren-buzz