As the world has been in the midst of a typhoon of theories and conspiracy, a modified image of Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales has triggered online speculations and raised the question of the security of the world wide web. The airbrushed photo, originated from the financiers and which has never been used by any news agency including AFP, has given birth to a tornado of conspiracy, “Katespiracy”, showing that information trust is a very fragile thing in the era of wide spread fake news.
The online guessing game started with Princess Kate who at that time wasn’t appeared in public since the last time she attended a Christmas Day church service and went through abdominal surgery in January. Kate’s picture which was taken by her husband, Prince William was supposedly published. Rather, sharp-eyed social media companions managed to find the Photoshop mistakes, like Kate’s zipper was not lining up correctly, which caused the picture to be retracted by international news agencies, including AFP.
A feeding frenzy ensured when the princess on red carpet announced her choice to edit the said picture without disclosing the rationale behind that or what she changed. The discoveries of such a research project only add fuel to the speculation fire, with social media quickly flashing images and comments about palace secret leaks. The news quickly got out of hand and there were some who even called for an investigation of the integrity of the very picture itself.
With the internet rabbit holes deepening, the armchair detectives were now so thorough that they look at even the slightest detail, such as the background plant in the photo or Kate’s whereabouts. The group of people who describe themselves as “Kate Middleton Truthers” started to be heard, calling for answers and some of them (statement: others) made jokes by a saying that
Kate Middleton took a crash course of Photoshop. In spite of anger from royal partisans that Kate’s privacy was maintained, the zeal kept mounting.
The situation is a culmination of all these alarming developments of falsity or untruthfulness in information technology, which in recent years have been accelerated by generative artificial intelligence. Right now we are living in the era of “deepfakes” which don’t actually need cutting-edge tech to equate such results. A post made by someone with no talent can demonstrate the same effect. There has been some controversy about this because of the alterations to the picture made by Kensington Palace and the media that formerly believed that excessive editing was the status quo, are currently reviewing their old handout pictures from the palace.
In an era of the internet where lying practices has become the norm, there is even a growing need for transparency among even the traditionally private British monarchs. While King Charles III obtained the praise for creating a chance to announce the diagnosis of his cancer disease, some professionals stated that his health problem was not well-explained, the same tendency that could be seen among the public which was free to concentrate on their own health issues. The issue prompts more and more openness and integrity echoes asking the royals to be on the fight with disinformation rather than their size contribution to the process.
In a time, where it takes very little thing to destroy somebody’s trust and suspicion to take deep word, the Princess Kate image controversy showcases, how contrast is the reality of manipulated visuals and the urgency of the transparency in digital era.
