Why your phone camera could derail justice

Social media has made us all instant reporters – and instant judges and juries. If cancellation was real, we would be executioners too.

Platforms like X and Facebook make it easy to get cross and tell the world – because the camera never lies.

At least that’s what we think. But camera clips can be edited, indeed, the power of artificial intelligence (AI) is so great that it’s almost impossible to know what is real and what could be real.

The rise of AI-generated deception

Two years ago, this extended as far as a picture of the late Pope Francis rapping in an all-white bougie puffer jacket, which went viral.

More recently, the Chinese have been doing an outstanding job using AI to craft clips of the current White House administration led by the Tariff King, with a cameo from Elon Musk all slaving away in factories to make the very Chinese imports that will become unaffordable, if not downright unavailable, to the US market under Donald Trump’s trade war.

We know they aren’t real – at least not yet. But we don’t know for sure in a world where everything is contested and the truth is warped. It’s the not knowing that is the most dangerous, especially in a court of law.

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Public opinion vs legal proof

We are very quick to share footage on neighbourhood groups or on social media of crimes we believe are being committed.

Most of us do it with the best interests at heart, but some of us do it for the vicarious thrill that has been the preserve of the neighbourhood gossip for millennia.

In the process, we’re shooting justice in the foot.

For a criminal prosecution to succeed, the case has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

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Let the evidence speak.

But the moment we start trying the case in the court of public opinion, rather than a court of law, any competent defence lawyer can use that to cast doubt on an eyewitness’s testimony – and get their client off.

We’ve seen it happen too many times, whether it’s tea-drinking judges caught on camera smashing into walls in Craighall or what looks like a road rage moment in Randburg what we might think in the court of public opinion, is often different to what can be conclusively proved in a court of law.

Sometimes, for justice to take its course, it’s better just to give the evidence to the professionals rather than publishing and damning the injured.

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