The web is full of conspiracy theories starting from the absurd to the believable. And loads of folks on-line have questioned whether or not Will Smith’s assault of Chris Rock on the Academy Awards on Sunday was staged. But there’s a brand new twist to this conspiracy idea that we are able to safely debunk: No, Chris Rock wasn’t sporting a pad on his cheek when Will Smith slapped him.

After loads of unhealthy takes on Twitter on Sunday night time about whether or not Rock deserved to get slapped for telling a joke about Smith’s spouse, Jada Pinkett Smith, there was a sizeable portion of on-line shit-stirrers who began to insist the entire thing was staged.

Then, by Monday morning, the really unhinged takes began, together with a idea that not solely was the slap staged, Rock was sporting a pad on his cheek to cushion the blow from Smith.

Nevermind the truth that a tiny pad in your cheek wouldn’t do a lot to defend your face whereas getting slapped. It needed to be true. Because nothing is actual anymore, proper?

Well, let’s check out the photographs from that night time, captured by skilled photographers and uploaded to skilled images web sites accessed by Gizmodo, metadata and all.

Robyn Beck with the AFP took this picture on Sunday, which was distributed by Getty Images.

And in the event you zoom in you’ll be able to see there doesn’t seem like any padding on Rock’s cheek.

But might the AFP and Getty Images be in on the conspiracy? How about their competitor, the Associated Press? This picture was taken Sunday night time by AP photographer Chris Pizzello.

And right here we crop the picture once more to essentially get a correct look.

What’s the most probably clarification for why that viral picture seems to be like there’s one thing on Chris Rock’s left cheek? There are two doubtless potentialities. The first is that somebody intentionally photoshopped the picture to make it appear like there’s a prosthetic on Rock’s face. And that’s totally potential. People are making pretend photographs on a regular basis, generally as jokes that get stripped of context once they’re handed round on-line, different instances to deliberately deceive.

The different, and maybe extra doubtless, chance is that somebody used an “artificial intelligence” app in a naive try to get a greater picture. Apps like Remini can be found for iPhone that permit folks to “scale up” a picture however unsophisticated web sleuths can simply misunderstand how they work.

Programs like Remini take an present picture which may be pixelated or produce other lack of high quality and take a look at to guess what would make the picture higher. The program provides info fairly than pulling out the great thing about what’s already there.

The draw back, in fact, is that the AI is imperfect and doesn’t truly provide you with a extra correct model of what occurred in the true world. The program is guessing what’s imagined to be there and generally provides extra knowledge that wasn’t there within the first place. In this case, the app doubtless noticed the dramatic creases on Rock’s face after getting slapped—a superbly pure factor for a face to do after getting hit—and interpreted the daring strains as one thing that wasn’t there. The app stuffed in the remainder.

Gizmodo even tried doing this ourselves with the low-resolution prime picture of a tweet that’s gone viral. We ran the picture via a free model of Remini on iPhone:

And the app spat out this weirdness:

Granted our model gave Rock a shiny shine of additional enamel on his decrease lip, however you get the concept. The app added a discoloration on Rock’s face that was merely the results of lights bouncing off his pores and skin—this system believing in its robotic mind that it was serving to.

Again, we’re undecided what truly brought about this specific picture to appear like one thing is on Rock’s face. But our checks present a proof that’s extra believable than the picture at present circulating on social media.

Did Rock should get slapped? That half is as much as you. But for no matter it’s price Smith lastly apologized to Rock on Monday, albeit via a public statement on Instagram. It’s unclear whether or not Smith apologized to Rock personally. Smith actually didn’t embody Rock in his unique apology on stage on the Oscars after profitable the award for Best Actor about 10 minutes after the slap.

Whatever occurs subsequent between the 2, we are able to safely say Rock will in all probability be just a little jumpy the following time he performs stand-up in public. And Smith won’t ever reside down the truth that he slapped somebody on reside TV throughout what’s imagined to be a extremely managed surroundings full of a number of the most well-known folks on this planet.