A screenshot is a claim with its source cut off. It shows what one screen looked like, on one day, cropped the way somebody chose. This site has had to correct itself twice because of one. Here are the checks that would have caught both, in the order that saves the most time.
- A screenshot proves only that a screen once looked like this. Not that it was true, current or complete.
- Find the original before you judge the content. Most of the work is there.
- Check the date on the original, not the day it reached you.
- Most bad screenshots are not forgeries. Both of the ones that caught this site were accurate pictures of something out of date.
- If you cannot find the original, say so — or do not share it.
Three ways a screenshot goes wrong
A screenshot can be edited, it can be real but old, or it can be real, current and cropped so the part that changes its meaning is outside the frame. Only the first is fakery. The other two catch honest people, because nothing about the image looks wrong.
Editing needs no skill. In Chrome you right-click any text, choose Inspect, and the browser’s developer tools open on it. Their documentation describes what happens next in one line: “You can edit the DOM on the fly and see how those changes affect the page.” Change the words, take the screenshot, and the result looks exactly like the real site — because it is the real site, showing different words.Google, Get started with viewing and changing the DOM, Chrome DevTools documentation, read at source 16 Sep 2026.
Whether an image looks genuine tells you almost nothing. The checks below never look at the pixels.
The two times this site was caught
A licence, 22 August 2026. A screenshot showed an open-source Claude Code skill carrying “MIT with a commercial-use condition”, and a page here built an argument on that distinction. The project had moved to plain MIT on 14 May 2026 — three months before this site described the old licence as current. This site’s own verdict when it corrected the page: “The transcription was accurate; the source was out of date.” Star counts on the same page came from the same screenshot and were relabelled unverified.Site data: this site’s own correction of 22 August 2026, noted in place on skills are a supply chain.
A permission model, the same day. A screenshot summarising press coverage said Block’s Buzz lets you “decide exactly what each agent can do”. The project’s own security file said the opposite: channel membership is the only access control mechanism. The correction put plainly why the screenshot got it wrong: “Most coverage implies granular permissions; the repository does not.”Site data: this site’s own correction of 22 August 2026, noted in place on permission tiers for agents.
Neither screenshot was faked. One was a true picture of something that had stopped being true; the other was a true picture of coverage that had misread its subject. Checking the image would have found nothing. Checking the source found both.
The five checks
In order. Most screenshots are settled by the first two.
- Find the original. Search for a distinctive phrase from the image inside quotation marks, plus the name of the account or site shown. If it claims to be a web page, go to that page.
- Read the date on the original, not the date on the post that shared it. A licence, a price, a policy or a job figure can be accurately screenshotted and months out of date.
- Look outside the crop. The reply underneath, the paragraph before, the correction pinned an hour later. A crop is an editorial choice even when nobody meant it as one.
- Go one step further back. If the screenshot shows coverage of a report, a repository or a statement, read that instead. This is the check that caught the permission claim: the repository, not the articles about it.
- If the original is gone, look for an archived copy. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine offers to “Search the history of more than 1 trillion web pages”. A saved copy can confirm a deleted post; the absence of one proves nothing either way.Internet Archive, Wayback Machine, home page read at source 16 Sep 2026: “Search the history of more than 1 trillion web pages”.
Every check is about where the screenshot came from. None is about whether it looks real.
When you cannot verify it
Say so. “I can’t find the original of this” is a complete and useful sentence. Sharing with “unverified” attached is better than sharing without it, and not sharing is better than both when the claim would hurt someone if it turned out to be false.
When you check one and it holds up, keep the link to the original, not the image. The link can be re-checked by the next person; the image cannot.
Related
For images and video that may be generated rather than captured, see spotting fake images and video. For the number inside the screenshot, see how to read a number before you repeat it. For a source an AI handed you, see how to check an AI citation. The habit underneath all three is on critical thinking.
What this page could not verify
- How often viral screenshots are edited, stale or cropped. This site has not found a study measuring the split.
- Which reverse image search finds a given image. Results vary by tool and by image, and were not tested for this page.
- Whether a particular platform keeps edit histories or deleted posts. That changes by platform and was not checked here.
Google, Get started with viewing and changing the DOM · Internet Archive, Wayback Machine. Both read at source on 16 September 2026. Case examples from this site’s own corrections, each noted in place on the page it affected.
Errors on this page are corrected in place too, with a note where the change matters.