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Media was posted by @CoolTonesLA

on hotpix.example

at 5:40 PM PDT, August 9th, 2026.

Social Media Provenance Challenge

At a a recent online conference, I said that we can “change the global Internet conversation for the better, by making it harder for liars to lie and easier for truth-tellers to be believed.” I was talking about media — images, video, audio. We can make it much easier to tell when media is faked and when it’s real. There’s work to do, but it’s straightforward stuff and we could get there soon. Here’s how.

The Nadia story · This is a vision of what success looks like.

Nadia lives in LA. She has a popular social-media account with a reputation for stylish pictures of urban life. She’s not terribly political, just a talented street photog. Her handle is “[email protected]”.

She’s in Venice Beach the afternoon of Sunday August 9, 2026, when federal agents take down a vendor selling cheap Asian ladies’ wear. She gets a great shot of an enforcer carrying away an armful of pretty dresses while two more bend the merchant over his countertop. None of the agents in the picture are in uniform, all are masked.

She signs