The responsibility of Media should lead to the obvious: cross-checking information using technical tools.

“Misinformation isn’t like a plumbing problem that you simply fix and then it’s over. It’s a social phenomenon, like crime, that you have to constantly monitor and adapt to,” said Tom Rosenstiel, author, journalist, and former director of the American Press Institute.

If one were to ask what this has to do with the case of the murder of the stray, elderly dog “Sissy” in Gastouni, one need only take a close look at the photo that went viral on social media in Greece, adding fuel to the fire of mass outrage and the thirst not only for punishment, as stipulated by the law, but also for blind revenge.

Especially if they upload the photo to one of the free tools available online that check whether a specific file is an AI-generated image, they’ll be surprised. Greece Fact Check used one of these tools and found that the photo circulating—which depicts a woman holding the steering wheel as the perpetrator of the puppy’s murder—is 99% the result of processing on an artificial intelligence platform.

This does not mean that the incident is not entirely true and real. The video of the incident is genuine and comes from a security camera in the area (Gastouni Station area) and shows the vehicle approaching the immobilized animal, stopping for a few seconds, and then driving off, running over it and leaving it behind.

Equally true is the identification of the driver, according to the investigation conducted by officers from the Peneios Police Department. She is a 60-year-old woman who lives in the area. The woman turned herself in to the authorities and, according to reports, admitted that she was driving the vehicle. She claimed that she stopped because she saw the dog, mistakenly believed it had moved away when she started driving, and although she realized afterward that she had run it over, she left the scene because she was afraid.

Reports indicate that identifying even the car’s license plate number was no simple task, as it required cross-referencing video footage from multiple cameras to record the incident and summon theowner. Nevertheless, the perfect stage was set for this fabricated incident, in which a woman was brutally ridiculed and targeted.

There are two possibilities regarding her identity. Either she is a real person who was “placed” behind the wheel of the car using AI, or she is simply an AI-generated construct. In the first case, and only if she or someone else reports the incident, it is very likely that an order will be issued to investigate the origin of the fake fabrication.

Nevertheless—and this is one of the alarming and dangerous phenomena of our time—the “people’s courts” immediately sprang into action, digital gallows were erected almost automatically, as is the case in every similar situation. It was nothing more and nothing less than what happens every day in the digital world of post-truth,reality, where any distinction between true and false facts has been abolished in favor of a reality that is convenient for everyone.

It seems simple, but it isn’t, and it is one of the most important issues facing modern democracy in many Western countries where all versions of the truth circulate freely. This is something that party leaderships know very well—and exploit accordingly.

The media’s responsibility should lead to the obvious: verifying information using technical tools. On the contrary, the exact opposite prevails, following the time-honored principle of sensationalism: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

The only encouraging development stems from the fact that, according to surveys, such as the most recent study by Metron Analysis, shows that Greek users view the results of AI use with particular skepticism, at a rate approaching as high as 80%.

The key, however, is for information and news professionals to address this skepticism before false information is disseminated. Because, as the Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) once said “A lie travels around the world before the truth has even had time to put on its pants”…