Blog/2026-01-10/The Impact of Fake Video is Overrated
A common belief that people used to have is that people would use fake video to create outrage in the world. I was of the belief that a substantial enough amount of fake video would convince people to not trust online content and they would simply ignore it. However, neither of us was correct.
In practice, there are enough human beings right now, with sufficient recording devices for us to obtain sufficient scissor incidents that intelligent people can take exactly the opposite position on.
The case below is that of the Killing of Renée Good with a video discussed by Paul Graham, Palmer Luckey, and Elon Musk. These are all fairly successful people and yet we have two diametrically opposed views expressed here:
Paul Graham @paulg ICE just shot and killed a woman Minneapolis. A US citizen. How long before we say "Enough is enough?"
Jan 7, 2026[1]
Elon Musk @elonmusk Replying to @paulg
She tried to run people over
Jan 7, 2026[2]
Paul Graham @paulg Replying to @elonmusk
No she didn't, and here's the evidence. She's turning the front wheels of her car to the right, away from the ICE officer on her left. If she was trying to run him over, why would she turn in the other direction?
Jan 7, 2026[3]
Palmer Luckey @PalmerLuckey Hi Paul, she hit the gas with her wheels turned to the left, straight at the agent. Then he pulls his gun, then she turns right, captured in the still frame you posted.
She gasses it so hard with her wheels left that her tires spin. Turned direct at the agent and accelerating
Jan 7, 2026[4]
I noticed this myself many months ago, when I saw a video of a stabbing in Germany. In that event, a very high quality video existed of the entire event which I mirrored to the reply to the following tweet of mine. I imagined that anybody watching the video could draw exactly the same conclusion as me, which I'd transcribed. I was surprised to see that many people at the time did not. Unfortunately, I did not think to archive the tweets but they were screenshotting the video and describing things that were straightforwardly untrue.
Roshan George @arjie This is incorrect. Correct course of events in the immediate seconds before:
1. Sulaiman A. attacks 2. Jony L. interferes 3. Jony L. and Sulaiman A. fight on the ground 4. Torsten K. misreads the situation and attacks Jony L. 5. Rouven L. (cop) tackles Torsten K. and pins him 6. Simultaneously, Sulaiman A. breaks free of Jony L. 7. Sulaiman A. stabs Rouven L. in the head
I have fixed the Wikipedia article with the Tagesschau source. It is a sad tale especially since Rouven L. is killed. The video is quite clear as to what the sequence of events were and it's quite clear in this text as well.
Feb 22, 2025[5]
Particularly strange for me were that many people were acting as if the description in the original post was correct. They were looking at a screenshot with evidence of the opposite of what was said and yet continued to say what they did.
This means that the concerns of fake videos are overblown. Reality is such that many people can watch a video and describe the video as showing things that did not occur. For many videos, sufficiently intelligent people can simply have opposite views as to what occurred in them.
It is worthwhile to remember that 'the masses' cannot answer questions like those posed in the Maryland Police Officer Selection Test[6], one of which I will include here as an example.
On Tuesday, Officer Jones worked the 3 p.m.–11 p.m. shift. At 10:55 p.m. he was called to the scene of an accident where he remained until 1:30 a.m. How long past his regular shift did Officer Jones work?
A. 55 minutes
B. 1 hour, 50 minutes
C. 2 hours
D. 2 hours, 30 minutes
E. 3 hours, 5 minutes
— Maryland POST[6]
US courts have determined that questions such as these have disparate impact and cannot be used in a selection exam for police officers. It's likely that a lot of people struggle with this kind of stuff. Having observed something they nonetheless struggle to believe it.
But with video, even smart people struggle to agree. That means that those who suffer on that test are probably going to find it even harder to tell what's going on. Given that, do we really need fake video to scissor society? We can probably just use completely real video and have people say opposite things.
And where AI generated video would immediately result in someone being embarrassed, these scissor videos will keep propagating as each side says "Look at how wrong the other is!".
People can only consume so much video, and there appears to be a sufficient supply of scissor videos so AI video is wholly unnecessary for the purpose of outrage-whipping.
Notes
- ↑ Paul Graham [@paulg] (Jan 7, 2026). "ICE just shot and killed a woman Minneapolis. A US citizen. How long before we say "Enough is enough?"" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ↑ Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (Jan 7, 2026). "She tried to run people over" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ↑ Paul Graham [@paulg] (Jan 7, 2026). "No she didn't, and here's the evidence. She's turning the front wheels of her car to the right, away from the ICE officer on her left. If she was trying to run him over, why would she turn in the other direction?" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ↑ Palmer Luckey [@PalmerLuckey] (Jan 7, 2026). "Hi Paul, she hit the gas with her wheels turned to the left, straight at the agent. Then he pulls his gun, then she turns right, captured in the still frame you posted. She gasses it so hard with her wheels left that her tires spin. Turned direct at the agent and accelerating" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ↑ Roshan George [@arjie] (Feb 22, 2025). "This is incorrect. Correct course of events in the immediate seconds before: 1. Sulaiman A. attacks 2. Jony L. interferes 3. Jony L. and Sulaiman A. fight on the ground 4. Torsten K. misreads the situation and attacks Jony L. 5. Rouven L. (cop) tackles Torsten K. and pins him 6. Simultaneously, Sulaiman A. breaks free of Jony L. 7. Sulaiman A. stabs Rouven L. in the head I have fixed the Wikipedia article with the Tagesschau source. It is a sad tale especially since Rouven L. is killed. The video is quite clear as to what the sequence of events were and it's quite clear in this text as well" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Stanard & Associates, Inc. (2001). The National Police Officer Selection Test (POST) Study Guide (PDF) (Report). Stanard & Associates, Inc. Retrieved 2026-01-09.
