VideoBlocks CEO: Policing Fake News Is 'Virtually Impossible' (Exclusive)

VideoBlocks’ booming business supplying stock digital video to content creators is faced with one fundamental issue — it is “virtually impossible” to prevent people from using the product to create fake news.

“I understand why 2016 is the year that fake news sort of had its coming-out party,” VideoBlocks CEO T.J. Leonard told TheWrap. “More and more content is getting created by people who aren’t your traditional professional content producers.”

VideoBlocks offers a combined $10 million worth of stock digital assets such as videos, 360-degree virtual reality clips, images, graphics and audio files that anyone could hypothetically use to create fake news. For example, someone can use the product to superimpose themselves at the Kremlin in Russia, or even put Donald Trump at the Kremlin, for that matter. The possibilities are endless.

Also Read: Mark Zuckerberg Says Effort to Combat Fake News Won't Limit 'People's Freedom of Expression'

“It’s becoming harder for consumers to differentiate what’s real and what has been manufactured to have the appearance of being real,” Leonard said. “I’ve never noticed any piece of fake news that featured our content.”

VideoBlocks has worked with legit media outlets, including ABC, NBC, The Weather Channel and National Geographic, but Leonard admits that anyone can use his product to create fake news. That said, he won’t do anything to stop it, at this point.

“We’ve never been about restricting access or policing the usage; we’ve been about the exact opposite. As a result, we’ll notice our material in a movie or in a YouTube video and sort of catalog that for our own benefit,” Leonard said. “We don’t know where our content goes. There is nothing in our license that says, ‘You have to report back.'”

Also Read: How VideoBlocks Helped James Franco, Seth Rogen Mock Kim and Kanye

Leonard explained that if he wanted to put in a fake news policy, it would be “virtually impossible” for the company to police where the content created with VideoBlocks winds up.

“To me, 2016 in a lot of ways was about realism… and exactly what that means to all of us. We had a presidential election which very much challenged our sense of what was real and what was entertainment,” Leonard said. “I think we saw a lot of trends in the commercial content world reflect that.”

Leonard feels emerging technology, such as drone footage and virtual reality, will continue to contribute to a “hyper-realistic, first-person view of the world” that impacts how people view reality, especially when it is shared on social media.

Also Read: ABC News, Facebook Partner to Stop 'Toxic Effects' of Fake News

VideoBlocks is currently used by 150,000 customers, ranging from traditional news outlets to individuals looking to create a YouTube video. Leonard isn’t sure how many of the customers have bad intentions, but he’s excited about what 2017 will offer content creators of all types.

“We’re really becoming one big, creative world,” he said.

Misinformation in 2016: A Timeline of Fake News (Photos)

Hopefully we'll look back at 2016 as that weird year when fake news stories oddly garnered influence over the voting population of the country. On the other side of the spectrum, there's also a chance we may look back one day in an effort to decode the origins of a propaganda tactic that's continued to be manipulated by powerful and/or misinformed ne'er do wells. Either way, there's no doubt we can learn from the false stories that started it all.
Getty/Lucasfilm
In February, Donald Trump entertained conspiracy theories that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered when reports surfaced that he was found with "a pillow on his face." Alex Jones' InfoWars had earlier reported on suggestions Scalia was killed. But the owner of the ranch where Scalia died later clarified that he did not have a pillow over his face.
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In June, Trump tweeted a photo that purported to show a family of African-Americans who supported him. But they told BuzzFeed they definitely did not.
Twitter
A fake NBC site alleged in August that Donald Trump was dead, inspiring the hashtag #RIPTrump. If the site's own traffic counter is to be believed, the story got more than three million views.
From fake NBC site
One fake news story that came out ahead of the election was published by "Winning Democrats," according to SF Gate. The false report claimed that Ireland was accepting refugees from the U.S. who were fleeing the possibility of a Trump presidency. The story reportedly got 810,000 engagements on Facebook before it was taken down.
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About a week before the Nov. 8 election claims that Pope Francis endorsed Trump circulated online. It was and remains unequivocally false. The fake story reportedly originated on the satirical website WTOE 5 News, with the headline "Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement."
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On Nov. 10, Trump tweeted that post-Election Day protestors were “professional,” but a professional fake-news writer, Paul Horner, admitted that he had invented a story about protesters being paid.
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Fake news writer Paul Horner 'fessed up to fabricating stories on his “satire” site abcnews.com.co (which even uses a logo designed to mimic the real ABC News logo) for a year. But he told The Washington Post a few weeks after the election, that he didn't realize how much damage fake news disguised as real news can do. "Honestly, people are definitely dumber. They just keep passing stuff around. Nobody fact-checks anything anymore -- I mean, that’s how Trump got elected," he said.
From abcnews.com.co
False stories circulated before the election that Hillary Clinton would definitely be indicted for her use of a private email server. A fake news site called WorldPoliticus claimed to have the big scoop. The Washington Post tracked down the fake story, which cited an unnamed FBI source. The story has since been taken down.
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In late November, Trump made an unsupported claim in a Twitter message: "I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." Trump may have been referencing multiple fake stories on conspiracy websites that claim he defeated Clinton in the popular vote count, CNN hypothesized.
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It earned the dubious nickname "PizzaGate": In early December a man with a rifle who claimed to be "self-investigating" a baseless online conspiracy theory entered a Washington, D.C., pizzeria and fired the weapon inside the restaurant.

Also Read: #PizzaGate: 4 Things You Need to Know About Fake-News Freakout Du Jour
AMC
Sandy Hook conspiracy theories have been brewing for a while, but they fueled an actual crime in early December when a Florida woman was charged with issuing death threats to a parent of one of the 20 children killed in the 2012 mass shooting. The woman issuing the threats was reportedly inspired by the hoax theory that the elementary school massacre that also left six staffers dead didn't actually happen.
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The hashtag #DumpStarWars started trending on Dec. 8, bolstered by the allegation that the film "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" included an anti-Trump message. Disney told TheWrap the claim was unequivocally false.

Also Read: No, ‘Rogue One’ Doesn’t Contain Anti-Trump Messages
Getty/Lucasfilm

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Fictitious stories out this year had real world effects

Hopefully we'll look back at 2016 as that weird year when fake news stories oddly garnered influence over the voting population of the country. On the other side of the spectrum, there's also a chance we may look back one day in an effort to decode the origins of a propaganda tactic that's continued to be manipulated by powerful and/or misinformed ne'er do wells. Either way, there's no doubt we can learn from the false stories that started it all.

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Misinformation in 2016: A Timeline of Fake News (Photos)

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