Glossary: Cheapfake
Launch library · evergreen read
A cheapfake describes manipulated media created using simple, widely available techniques, basic editing, mislabelling, slowing or speeding up footage, rather than any advanced synthetic generation method involving specialised software. The term itself distinguishes it clearly from more technically sophisticated deepfakes that require genuinely specialised tools and expertise to produce convincingly.
Cheapfakes remain remarkably common precisely because they require so very little skill or resources to create in the first place, since a misleading caption or a fairly basic edit is often more than enough to change how a piece of footage is understood, without needing any advanced technology at all involved.
Because cheapfakes rely on such comparatively simple techniques, they are generally easier to catch through ordinary verification habits already covered, checking source, date and surrounding context carefully, than through any specialised detection tool specifically aimed at more advanced, complex synthetic media of the kind generated by machine learning instead.