Remember that brief, shining moment when video proved something? Good times.

Sure, there was “fake news,” whether of the sort that was a matter of wholesale fabrication or the more pernicious sort proffered by seemingly credible sources, twisted with half-truths artfully designed to confirm your bias.

But those were, in the scheme of what technology is capable of doing, child’s play. After all, we still maintained the ability to dig a little deeper, research, source and learn that the fake news, whether from non-existent newspapers to very well-known ones, was less than accurate.

Note that the word “true” isn’t used, since truth is a product of what you believe under the current regime. No longer is truth grounded in fact, but belief about fact. A fact is only so much of a fact as we choose to believe it to be.

But throughout this brief shining period, there was one thing that stood apart, above, the malicious call for truthiness. Video. Sure, it was subject to interpretation, as police were invariably able to see things that mere mortals could not. But still, we had eyes. We could see. And if the angle was right, the sunlight adequate, the vista clear, video would tell us what really happened.

But no more. Forget the simplistic efforts to edit video, to alter video, to bury video under false claims that the button didn’t work. Tricks are for kids. Instead, people with mad tech skillz have flexed their muscles and crafted the means to give us a visual demonstration of our worst nightmare: we can see it. It’s as real as anything could be. And it’s a lie.

Those old days before movie magic, when there was some level of trust that our eyes didn’t deceive us, even if our mind desperately wanted them to?  Say bye-bye. And say hello to the new world of proof. This gives entirely new meaning to “but for video.”

H/T John Cole