The Credibility Drain: When Fake Footage Outlasts Real Suffering

The particular cruelty of the synthetic media problem is that it shifts the burden of proof onto the people who can least afford to carry it. Witnesses to genuine atrocities are now required not only to document what they see but to authenticate that documentation against an ambient suspicion they did not create. Ahmed Younis's plea to a mutual — stop sharing the fabricated footage, because "we will lose our honesty because of this fake stuff" — names the specific cost: credibility as a survival resource, and the fear…