Fact check: Gravity allows cities on opposite sides of the world to both face 'up'

Published December 15, 2022

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A story in USA Today that fact-checks several scientific myths includes testimony by Siwei Lyu, Empire Innovation Professor of computer science and engineering.

He commented on a manipulated Facebook photograph “showing an upside-down city.” “We shouldn’t be seeing the early warping at this altitude,” he said.

Read the story here. Numerous other media outlets, including Canada TodayYahoo! News and MSN, also covered the story.

Lyu also was quoted in an Agence France Presse article questioning the authenticity of a video of Donald Trump discussing Ye’s (formerly known as Kanye West) anti-Semitic remarks. Lyu said the video is likely a deepfake created using automatic lip-syncing technology that generates lip motions based on an audio track.

"To me, the telltale sign of the potential synthesis is the inconsistent synchronization of the lip movements with the audio track," Lyu said. "This is not easy to see because the creator uses the overlaid texts to block the visibility of the lips."

Yahoo! News also posted the story.