Maintenance
How to verify a political video before you share it: trace, then label
Trace a political video to its earliest upload, read the end card and campaign accounts, then pick an honest label: campaign, unattributed or unverified.
What to take away
- Trace first, judge secondthe earliest upload tells you more than the sharpest copy.
- A missing disclaimer shows a post is unattributed. It does not show a deepfake.
- A disclaimer shows who paid for a video, and a deceptive ad can carry one.
- An FEC complaint is not a takedown request, so the decision to share stays with you.
- Your trace should end in a label you can defend, not a guess.
- "Unverified" is an honest result. Do not share the clip as real.
Find the earliest upload first
The earliest upload tells you more than the sharpest copy. Reposts, screenshots and recuts hide who made the clip and when, so trace it back before you judge anything in the frame.
Run a few frames through Google Lens, TinEye or Yandex, then search a distinctive spoken line in quotation marks. Sort the hits by date and open the oldest one. A repost with a large audience is not the origin, and first appearance on a repost is not evidence.
- Copy the link and account name of the post you saw. A link can be checked, while a screenshot of a post can be edited.
- Pull three frames from the clip and run them through reverse image search.
- Search a spoken line in quotation marks and sort the results by date.
- Open the oldest hit and look at the account that posted itwho runs it, and what else it posts.
- Write down what you found and what you did not, using a source and claim checklist so the notes stay comparable.
Read the end card and the campaign's channels
A political ad should say who paid for it. Pause the last seconds for the paid for by line and, on candidate ads, the approval statement. Screenshots usually crop them out, so go back to the full video before you conclude anything.
Under 11 CFR 110.11, public communications from federal campaigns need a disclaimer naming who paid. Candidate ads also carry the stand by your ad statement: "I am [name] and I approve this message."
FEC guidance on disclaimers says a communication paid for by a group or individual but not authorized by a candidate must carry a disclaimer notice identifying who paid and whether any candidate authorized it.
Then check the candidate's own YouTube, X and Facebook accounts. If the video is absent from all three, treat it as unattributed. To confirm who a committee is, use FEC filings and clerk records rather than the page the video came from.
What you can say about the clip
Your trace ends in a sentence, not a verdict. Match what you found to the wording the evidence supports, and leave out the claims it does not.
| What you found | You can say | You cannot say |
|---|---|---|
| Earliest upload sits on the candidate's own account | "Posted by the campaign's account" | That the words are accurate |
| End card names a committee | "Paid for by the committee on the end card" | That the video is real |
| No disclaimer and no campaign copy | "Unattributed" | That it is a deepfake |
| Only reposts, no earlier upload found | "Origin not found" | That it is real or fake |
| Odd lip sync or audio | "Worth a forensic check" | That it is proven synthetic |
The wording matters because a caption travels further than your notes. "Unattributed" is accurate and leaves room for the campaign to answer.
What the FEC rule does and does not reach
The Federal Election Commission has no dedicated deepfake statute. Its tool is the rule at 11 CFR 110.16.
The fraudulent misrepresentation rule bars a federal candidate, or an employee or agent of one, from fraudulently misrepresenting themselves or a committee under their control as acting for another candidate or party in a damaging way.
That scope limit matters. An anonymous account or outside group posting a fake sits largely outside the rule, even when the clip looks like a candidate ad. The advisory opinions and provenance signals behind it are covered in FEC rules and platform policy.
An FEC complaint is not a takedown request. The agency cannot order a platform to pull an ad, and investigations run on their own clock.
Inspect the media last
Inspect the media only after the origin and the end card, because those checks narrow what the pixels have to prove. Lip sync, teeth, hands and audio room tone are fast tells, and they are clues, not a verdict.
The guide to suspected AI media takes the forensic checks further for video and audio. For stills pulled from the clip, the image and video checklist follows the same sequence.
When the trace runs cold
Sometimes the honest answer is that nobody knows yet. A clip can be lawful, unlabeled and not yet reviewed by anyone. When the origin is missing, the end card is cropped and the campaign is silent, the accurate answer is that nobody has shown where the clip came from.
Hold the share until the origin is clear. The election claim guide covers what to check when the claim inside the video is the part in doubt.
