Just because a picture can say a thousand words, it doesn't mean that they're all true. 

Yes, Facebook is extending its efforts against fake news to photos and video.

Fake it till you shake it?

Until recently, Facebook was focused primarily on the accuracy of posts and articles when it came to fact-checking.

Now Facey and third-party fact-checking are using a variety of techniques, including image metadata, reverse image searching, and academic research, to ensure visual content is legit.

Image is everything

For example, Facebook sleuths are using optical character recognition (OCR) to strip text from photos and compare then to headlines from official articles. 

Facebook says these techniques will help flag suspect content for manual review, and lead to a decrease in misleading photos and videos.

Straight and narrow

How do you fall afoul of Facebook's new image standards? There are three ways: (1) if your image or video is either Manipulated or Fabricated, (2) Out of Context, and (3) a Text or Audio Claim.

While the updates are part of Facebook's long-term fight against fakes and also tied to the upcoming US Mid-Term elections, it's a reminder for all of us to keep it real when posting.

We just hope cat memes and GIFs don't get caught up in Facebook's security sweep.