SYNTHETIC MEDIA
Synthetic Media and Cognitive Pressure
The risk is not one fake artifact — it is multimodal corroboration creating an illusion of independent confirmation.
Synthetic media types
Multimodal corroboration
A false claim could potentially appear simultaneously across multiple formats, creating an illusion of independent corroboration. The defender's question: could these be manifestations of one operation?

Content provenance (C2PA)
C2PA Content Credentials cryptographically sign media origin and edit history. C2PA specification version 2.4 was released in April 2026.
Important limitation: Provenance can help establish where media came from and how it was modified; provenance alone does not prove that a factual claim is true.
"Unsigned" does not automatically mean "fake."
- ▸One fake artifact is detectable; multimodal corroboration is harder.
- ▸C2PA provenance shows origin, not truth.
- ▸Unsigned media is not automatically fabricated.