You don’t have to scroll very far down most social media feeds to find a screenshot of a text, comment, or post—maybe a ridiculous Reddit post, or a hilarious reply on X, or an incriminating WhatsApp conversation. But how can you tell the screenshot is genuine, and not artificially created to mislead you?
First of all, it’s important to bear in mind that fake screenshots can be made very easily. Web browsers have HTML editing features that mean you can temporarily change what articles and online posts say, and there are an abundance of photo editors that will happily help you change text in an image with just a few clicks.
There are even free tools that will create fake social media posts for you. As a result, it’s often difficult to definitively prove the authenticity of a screenshot—but there are clues you can look for to help you make a judgment one way or another.
Check the context
If you’re dealing with a supposed screenshot of a post or article that’s in the public domain, your first question should be why the original content was screengrabbed and not linked to directly. Even if people are posting screenshots for convenience, they should still be linking back to the content they’re referring to.
If there’s no link back, see if you can find the original source yourself—look up the X account, the blog post, the Reddit thread, or whatever it is. If there’s no sign of it, that’s another reason to be suspicious. Posts can always be deleted of course (the Wayback Machine can help here), but it’s still worth investigating.
It’s all too easy to fake social media posts, and take snaps of them.
Credit: Lifehacker
Think too about what the screenshot is doing. Does it depict something controversial, illicit, or likely to stir up emotions? Essentially, is it possible that it’s just been made for clicks? That’s another warning sign. Getting a viral post is often worth the few minutes it takes to fake a screenshot, and there are plenty of people trying it.
Even when context is harder to figure out—with a private text message thread, for example—look around the main screenshot itself for clues. Who are the people involved? Have they made any official comment? Is there any background to how the screenshot was obtained? Is the screenshot from a trustworthy source (like a verified news organization)? This can all add to (or take away from) the credibility of an image.
Study the image
Screenshots may be easy to fake, but they can be rushed, and can come with inconsistencies. Study the image for inconsistencies: Bad alignment, broken or misplaced elements, or strange formatting. If the screenshot is from an app, try comparing it to the actual app on your own phone, or the Google Play Store or Apple App Store listing. Fakes will often use the wrong stylings or an out-of-date interface.
To try and hide these inconsistencies, fake screenshots will often be pixelated and of a low quality—this is something else to look out for. Genuine screenshots should be crisp and clear, and shouldn’t look fuzzy or over-processed: Unless a screenshot has a reason for being poor in its quality and resolution, be wary.
There are plenty of clues that this is a fake screenshot.
Credit: Instagram
The usual rules for spotting fake pictures apply to fake screenshots: Does everything fit? What’s the source? Does this actually make sense? Take this faked screenshot of a news story about child soldiers, where you can see straight away the fuzzy graphics and text. If you properly look at the image though, the uniforms look like play outfits—the kids don’t look particularly distraught or determined, and one of them is almost laughing.
Sure enough, the photo is from a war camp game and has nothing to do with any actual battles. Resources such as PolitiFact and Snopes can help in your screenshot debunking efforts, as can other detectives on social media and sites like Reddit (they might spot a problem with an image that you wouldn’t otherwise see). Where images are involved, it’s often worth using the TinEye reverse image search too.
Use a photo editor
Sometimes the metadata of a screenshot will reveal more about it. You can check this on Windows by right-clicking an image and choosing Properties; on macOS, right-click and choose Get Info. Look for details like the dates the image was created and last modified, and where it was last downloaded from. Not all screenshots will have all of this information attached, but it’s a good idea to check, just in case.
Getting the questionable screenshot up in a photo editor of your choice can help you get a closer look at it, and possibly spot some of the mistakes its creator has made in choosing the right fonts and graphics, getting elements properly aligned with each other, and removing evidence of fakery. You can usually check image data in photo editors too (in Photoshop, it’s File > File Info).
Photo metadata can sometimes reveal some secrets.
Credit: Lifehacker
Forensically is an excellent, free image analyzer that runs in your browser, and can help you take a closer look at screenshots (and any other picture type). As well as letting you magnify any part of an image, it also has a range of tools for detecting edits—such as looking for luminance values that don’t match, or checking for areas of an image that may have been cloned.
As I mentioned right at the top, proving that a screenshot is real or fake isn’t always possible, as these images are so easy to create—but once you’ve worked your way through all those steps, you should have a much better idea whether something you’re looking at is genuine or not.
