Fell for that 'check the blinking frequency' deepfake tip

My buddy Dave told me to spot deepfakes by watching how often a person blinks. Said real people blink every 3-4 seconds and fakes mess that up. I used that tip on a viral politician video yesterday and spent 20 minutes counting blinks. Turned out the video was real, the guy just blinks weirdly. The blinking thing only works on older AI models from like 2022, not the new stuff. Anyone else get burned by an outdated spotting trick?

3 comments

3 Comments

henryt181d ago

Man, that "turning off the video" line hit home - I've wasted so much time staring at faces instead of just checking the basic stuff like upload dates. The dry eye point is honestly genius too, because I never considered how much lighting and allergies mess with people's blink patterns. Feels good to know I'm not the only one who fell for this outdated trick though.

theajohnson1d ago

Oh jeez, my friend Sarah did the same thing. She was watching some cooking video and swore the host was a deepfake because she blinked every 2 seconds. Turned out it was just a dry eye day and she wasted a whole lunch break timing blinks.

amyh121d ago

I mean, honestly, timing blinks is such a rabbit hole. What helped me was just turning off the video and checking the upload date and channel history. If the channel’s been around for years with consistent uploads, it’s probably just a weird camera or editing thing. Also, looking at the comments section is a lifesaver - people always freak out about the same stuff and someone usually explains it. Maybe it’s just me but dry eyes or bad lighting explains more than half the deepfake panic I’ve seen. Took me way too long to figure that out though.