The number of deepfakes shared online rose from around half a million in 2023 to eight million by 2025. While much of this material is seen as humorous or satirical, deepfakes are increasingly used for scams, misinformation, and political manipulation, exploiting a long-standing human weakness: our tendency to trust what we can see. The Long View explores a striking historical parallel — the Cottingley Fairies affair of 1917–1921.

In post-First World War Yorkshire, two young cousins, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, produced photographs that appeared to show real fairies. The images were crude cut-outs, but photography was then a new “truth machine”, imbued with cultural authority. The photographs were believed not only by many in the public but by the famous writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who championed them as evidence of spiritual reality. At the same time, rationalist sceptics weighed in, dismissing the photographs as fake and a polarised debate ensued. The girls did not fully admit the images were fake until the 1980s.

Cottingley shows us not only that images can be faked but that - from early photography to today’s generative AI - every era over-trusts its latest representational technology before learning its limits. Jonathan Freedland is joined by Dr Merrick Burrow from the University of Huddersfield and Marianna Spring, the BBC’s disinformation specialist to explore the Cottingley Fairies story and ask what lessons can be learned from it in today’s age of digital deception.

Guests: Dr Merrick Burrow, Head of English and Creative Writing at the University of Huddersfield; Marianna Spring, BBC Disinformation Specialist

Producer: Neil McCarthy