The thing is, faking them went from a State can do it, to a professional can do it, an experienced amateur can do it, to absolutely everyone can
Absolutely everyone can was about 20 years ago though.
There's the practical distinction between "everyone can do it with some dedicated intent" (so few actually bother) vs "everyone can do it on a whim"
Admittedly a computer in everyone's hand is new. But corel paint, for example, was 12 years old in 2003. People were basically making memes and creating scenes that never existed on a whim and for the lulz back then.
And were much, much, better then these stupid examples!
I remember in the UK show Utopia from 2013, a government frames one of the characters for a school shooting by perfectly doctoring security footage to erase the actual hired shooter and replace them with a specific kid. And they do it all in a matter of hours. I remember thinking that tech was unrealistic, probably impossible. The best Hollywood VFX experts would need a week or more to make it that believable, and even they would need a ton of reference of both the kid and the lightning. Purely fantastical tech.
And now, here we are...
...to "now it's just a background process running on your phone".
The thing is, faking them went from a State can do it, to a professional can do it, an experienced amateur can do it, to absolutely everyone can
Absolutely everyone can was about 20 years ago though.
There's the practical distinction between "everyone can do it with some dedicated intent" (so few actually bother) vs "everyone can do it on a whim"
Admittedly a computer in everyone's hand is new. But corel paint, for example, was 12 years old in 2003. People were basically making memes and creating scenes that never existed on a whim and for the lulz back then.
And were much, much, better then these stupid examples!
I remember in the UK show Utopia from 2013, a government frames one of the characters for a school shooting by perfectly doctoring security footage to erase the actual hired shooter and replace them with a specific kid. And they do it all in a matter of hours. I remember thinking that tech was unrealistic, probably impossible. The best Hollywood VFX experts would need a week or more to make it that believable, and even they would need a ton of reference of both the kid and the lightning. Purely fantastical tech.
And now, here we are...
...to "now it's just a background process running on your phone".