MeVer NetworkX Analysis and Visualization Tool

Suspension of operation

This was a web-based application with the goal of facilitating the verification of UGC image and video content posted on YouTube, Twitter/X and Facebook. In contrast to other approaches, which attempt to analyze the media items themselves for traces of forgery, this platform focuses on the analysis of the media context: The characteristics of the poster, any relevant user comments, the local weather reports at the time of the event, and other contextual pieces of information are aggregated and presented to the user for analysis.

Unfortunately, the CAA tool is now outdated due to recent changes in platform APIs. The Twitter/X API, which was essential for obtaining the required information, is no longer accessible. This limitation has forced the suspension of the tool until the platform’s API becomes accessible again or until there is an alternative method for obtaining the data.

A YouTube, Facebook or Twitter/X URL for an image or video was needed as input and the "Verify" button was triggering the process. The verification report consisted of an AI verification result examining the trustworthiness of the media item and four sections presenting contextual cues. Section ‘General’ contains General information about the media and the channel/user/page/group it was uploaded. Section ‘Comments’ presents all the comments that appear under the media, verification-related comments that are filtered based on the presence of verification- related keywords, such as “fake”, “confirm”, or “location” and links-comments that refer to comments containing links. Section Thumbnails contain the video thumbnails and direct links to reverse image search on Google and Yandex. Section Twitter Context shows a timeline of the tweets sharing the media URL in case of YT or FB and the retweets in case of Twitter.

An example of the verification report is presented in the following figures, while a more detailed technical presentation and several use cases are included in the associated conference paper.