5.0 The Measuring Trustworthiness of Media Episode (Part Two: The Limits of Computational Trust)

When Brooklyn, New York photographer and entrepreneur Tiffany Walling McGarity crafted stunning portraits of friends using the very old tintype method, she wanted to preserve them, and the provenance of the images, in digital form. But she discovered that a technical method promising trustworthiness through a computational trust approach deemed her work "invalid" and exposed the downsides of technical trust approaches that reinforce existing institutional power structures. In this episode:

• Trustworthiness metadata, media trust signals, and "content credentials"
• News industry assumptions about technical media trustworthiness and and authenticity measures
• What computational trust measures miss that news journalism consumers care about
• The push for a zero trust-style distrust-first approach to media and news and who gets left out
• The blurring lines of technical and human trust

People Featured in this Episode

• Kate Kaye, Trust Control creator and narrator
• Tiffany Walling McGarity, Photographer, Co-founder and CEO of Metapyxl
• Tessa Sproule, Director of Metadata and Information Management at the English division of CBC Radio Canada
• Lynn Walsh, Journalist, Assistant Director of Trusting News, Chairwoman of the Society of Professional Journalists' Ethics Committee

Key References (Mostly) in Order of Appearance

PART ONE Tiffany Walling McGarity's Digitized Tintype Photos Tintype portrait of Matthew Perino Tintype portrait of Amanda Hollaback Photography by: Walling McGarity Both plates poured and processed on location in Brooklyn, NY by Gair Wissenbach

Nous avons été témoins, nous pouvons le prouver (translation: We have witnessed it, we can prove it.) Agence France Presse video 2025 Content Credentials (C2PA) (Also see C2PA technical specifications) In Post-Authenticity AI Age, Knowledge Institutions Matter More than Ever By John Wihbey Tech Policy Press 2025 NYT's Canada Bureau Chief Used AI for Fake Poilievre Quote ft. Michelle Cyca The North State 2026 Journalism fact-checking is "an infrastructure problem" LinkedIn Post Erik Svilich, Encypher CEO 2026

PART TWO

Instagram Photos Are Being Labeled 'Made With AI' When They're Not By Matt Growcoot PetaPixel 2024

PART THREE JPEG Trust Origin Lens: Reclaiming Trust on the AI-Mediated Web Through On-Device Image Provenance Verification by Alexander Loth, et al WebSci Companion '26: Companion Publication of the 2026 18th ACM Web Science Conference 2026

"if you can't prove it's real, it's not." Comment on LinkedIn Post 2026

Trust Control Credits Trust Control was researched, written, edited and produced by Kate Kaye. All interviews with sources featured in Trust Control were conducted by Kate unless otherwise noted. Fake ads and silly satire was voiced by Kate Kaye and/or Kyle Huth Music The tunes featured throughout Trust Control were written by D. Rives Curtright and performed by the band Epic Strange from Trust Control's home of Portland, Oregon:

• D. Rives Curtright: guitar, baritone sax, percussion and drum machine
• Charlie Gotgart: bass
• Steven Francisco: midi keys
• Octavio Dowling: keys
• Dave Coniglio: drums and vibraphone
• Mike McGovern: bass on Decimation

Hear the full Epic Strange album, Nouveau Electric Mess, on Soundcloud. Hear music from D. Rives Curtright on Spotify.

The work that went into Trust Control was done in Kate Kaye's personal time and was supported by Oregon State University's Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts fellowship on Trust in the Age of Generative AI and Oregon Humanities.