The internet is full of conspiracy theories that range from the absurd to the relatively believable. The latest theories revolve around the idea that Will Smith’s attack on Chris Rock during the Oscars was staged. Another “data” that supports this theory is the kind of patch that Rock has put on his face.

The theory maintains that the attack was not just a montage that was allegedly orchestrated by the organizers to fix the audience’s worsening personalities at the party. Additionally, they confirmed that Chris Rock wore a hidden patch on his face in order to mitigate the slap that was on the cusp of even greater ratings glory..

A small patch won’t do much to relieve a slap in the face, but let’s give the theory the benefit of the doubt for a moment and examine the brawl photos. To do this, all you have to do is turn to press photos of aggression that are uploaded to independent agencies. Like AFP, whose metadata allows to rule out any kind of manipulation to clear evidence. This image of Robin Beck, for example, is from Getty Images (AFP).

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Basta hacer zoom pàra ver que Rock no tenía ningún parche sobre la cara.

Pero… ¿Es posible que AFP y Getty estén compradas por los organizadores y hayan subido fotos retocadas con matadatos falsificados. Examinemos esta otra foto de Chris Pizzello para Asociated Press.

Mismo resultado. Ni haciendo zoom se ve rastro de un parche, lo que significa que o solo existe en la imaginación calenturienta de los conspiradores o realmente hay mucha gente metida en esto, y ya sabemos for Mathematics That the more people involved in a conspiracy, the more impossible it became to hide.

Where did that image of the rock with a kind of bandage the same color as his skin come from on his cheek? There are two possible explanations. The first is that someone filmed it there. People make the wrong pictures all the time. Sometimes he does it just for fun and other times for more sinister reasons.

The second option is that someone tried to use AI software to precisely enhance the image in order to find details hidden from the naked eye. Apps like Remini allow you to increase the quality of the image. The problem is that many people do not understand how the algorithms that serve as the basis for these applications work.

What Remini and similar apps do is analyze a high-pixel image and try to guess the missing information. It’s not that the algorithms extract hidden information in the JPG. It is that they invent what they lack. The result is that what they show is not a more accurate version of the original image, but a machine-made interpretation. In the case of Rock’s expression lines, an app like Remini can interpret and add more detail to those lines. We at Gizmodo have tried to replicate the error using Remini specifically to no avail, but the resulting image also contains details and artifacts that make Rock’s face look very strange. This is the original image:

Here is the image after the Gemini digital “upgrade” to 8K.

Once again, the photo that gave rise to this theory is the only one out there in a sea of ​​photos taken by paparazzi.Independent professional charts that found no trace of the alleged correction. Which makes the possibility of using Photoshop is the most realistic. Now you might have to ask yourself what is more likely, that the organization is risking its prestige and credibility due to the sad rise in the audience or that a 17-year-old from some part of the planet wants to feed your credibility for a laugh.

As for the slap itself, we will not dwell on whether it is justified or not. Will Smith issued a public apology on Instagram on Monday, although it wasn’t revealed if the actor had apologized privately to Rock or if there was an exchange of apologies for the joke about his wife’s baldness. In the end, the only thing left to the story is a resounding slap that occurred within a ceremony where everything is supposed to be controlled.