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Rendered Car Images Are Used As Clickbait, Several Brands Affected

A recent inquiry regarding digitally altered images of existing models from Dodge, Cadillac, and a few other brands has revealed that these were clickbait for some websites.
The real 2016 Cadillac Escalade 1 photo
Photo: Cadillac
The “doctored” pictures were removed after being shared numerous times on Facebook, and they have attracted many users to the websites that were behind those links.

What’s interesting about those fake images that were presented as real were published in sponsored posts on the world’s most successful social network, which took users to different websites filled with ads from various providers.

Automotive News has made an inquiry on the matter, and a part of the result was obvious from the beginning. The digitally-modified vehicles had nothing to do with future products from the brands they represented, and this affects the automakers that are selling the original cars.

In other cases, concept vehicles were presented as the “new model,” and those are just as obvious for those who know the difference between a concept and a production car.

Automakers, including Cadillac and Dodge, are struggling to fight with what is essentially fake news, in spite of apparently promoting next-generation models made by them.

These images are harmful to the brands they claim to represent because any potential customers attracted by the automobile in the digitally-altered photographs will be disappointed by the real deal.

Anyone affected by the phenomena of fake news, intellectual property infringement, or other similar issues can file a complaint with Facebook. However, there’s a long way from a single report to a true action to stop fake news from circulating.

Cadillac’s representatives have confirmed they initiated contact with Facebook to prevent the digitally altered images from being spread on user timelines.

As Automotive News notes, things get worse on the social network because a misleading image leading to a link where information about the real product can be found does not violate Facebook’s policies.

Meanwhile, the websites that mislead their visitors gain profit from the ads they show, and the brands behind the real vehicles suffer unquantifiable damage to their images because of those fake pictures that claim to portray an actual car, which will never exist in the presented configuration.

Wondering what you should do if you suspect an automobile shown online as a new model to be fake? We suggest checking multiple websites for the same car, as well as a “reverse Google search” of that image, which just means uploading the image to Google and searching for it somewhere else. When a website that you have never heard about has an exclusive scoop on a new model, it may not be true.

Please note that our section of renderings does not fall into this category, as those images are clearly marked as digitally-altered images, and their creators are attributed, which is not misleading to any user because everyone is notified that the car in the image is a digitally-created image that does not represent a product of the brand.
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About the author: Sebastian Toma
Sebastian Toma profile photo

Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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