The world is facing two plagues currently: The COVID-19 pandemic and the infodemic. While one degrades the body, the other attacks the human mind. A natural experiment showed that there is a potential link between the two, the spread of the virus being directly proportional to reporting the news later. So, we can only assume that the falser the information absorbed by the brain, the greater the chances of catching COVID-19. A healthy mind can support a healthy body, and vice versa. Did the “Mens sana in corpore sano” “theory” lose its meaning?
In order to bring the Latin expression back to the forefront but also to stop this phenomenon of misinformation that is taking place globally from happening, some companies have created campaigns that aim to make people differentiate true news from false. Many of these initiatives focus on the text but visuals are as equally dangerous.
Visual misinformation is not just about edited videos. This way of fooling the world also takes shape in much simpler forms, such as photographs. And what makes them look so real is that they are not edited. They are simply taken out of context. This technique involves recycling photos and presenting them as evidence of other events – or with a different story.
Many photographers complain about the fact that their illustrations are misused and taken out of context to tell a different story. If there are chatbots that one can use to check the authenticity of the news, it would be only fair to have such tools for imagery too, right? Fortunately, there are: Meet the “Truthmark,” Canon Nordic‘s online portal that can be used to check the real stories behind the images.
Made with the help of creative agency Uncle Grey Copenhagen, the campaign invites photographers and photojournalists around the world to upload their work alongside the real stories behind it. The images are copyrighted to their respective creators and once the illustrations are uploaded to the database, they are encrypted and carry the real stories in their DNA.
Truthmark Initiative addresses not only photojournalists but members of the public too, who want to check their information and discover what’s the real origin of the image. “Using images for the wrong purposes is too easy in this day and age and it’s extremely frustrating for the photographer — which is why we’re constantly trying to fight it. We want to make sure the images are used correctly and in the way we intended them to be used,” Ivor Prickett, a multi-award-winning freelance photojournalist and Canon Ambassador, said in a press release.
“We want to put a stop to the misuse of pictures to fuel fake stories. The world needs to know the truth more than ever right now — and that’s what Truthmark is for, to fight for it,” Jenni Lindström, Director of Nordic and Baltic Marketing at Canon Imaging Technologies & Communications, continued.
Via this campaign, Canon aims to reduce the misuse of photos worldwide and encourage people to see the truth (even through the right lens). To support the initiative, the Copenhagen-based agency created a video in which award-winning photographers Ivor Prickett, Johnny Haglund, and Daniel Etter say why it is so important for the rest of us to know the real story behind an image.
Credits:
Client: Canon Nordic
Agency: Uncle Grey Copenhagen