When the Galaxy S23 Ultra came out, many people complained that images of the Moon captured with the smartphone’s 100x zoom feature were too good to be true and that the company was applying an image overlay to make the pictures look clear.
Samsung strongly denied those allegations and it has been explained how the phone makes use of advanced technologies to capture clear Moon photos. While we thought that was the end of the controversy, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Galaxy S23 Ultra Moon photos dragged under the spotlight again
Samsung recently made a tweet highlighting the imaging capabilities of the Galaxy S23 Ultra; more specifically, the phone’s ability to take detailed photos of the Moon. The post reads: “There’s no dark side of the moon with the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Capture your night skies and share with us by replying to this thread with SharetheEpic.”
And well, Samsung ended up being rather embarrassed, as Twitter has added a Community Note to the post saying “Samsung phones digitally “fake” images taken of the Moon to make them appear sharper.”
When spending ad dollars hurts your brand 😬 pic.twitter.com/MCZ8FYpEl9
— David ImeI (@DurvidImel) April 23, 2023
Fact checks are branded Community Notes on Elon Musk's Twitter
Community Notes, which are a new method of fact checking added to Twitter after Elon Musk's takeover, can be added to a tweet by a contributor. When enough contributors from different points of view rate a particular note helpful, Twitter makes it public. While Community Notes often add useful context to important topics, Samsung probably isn't happy.
While it's clear that Samsung isn't “faking” Moon photos on the Galaxy S23 Ultra (or earlier Galaxy S Ultra smartphones), not everyone believes Samsung’s explanation, and we assume one person added the initial Community Note to the phone’s advertisement and people jumped on the bandwagon, upvoted the note and pushed it to the top.
Whatever the case may be, it is embarrassing to see Samsung’s post flagged as fake by Twitter, especially when you consider that the Korean tech giant might have paid the social media platform to boost it. We haven’t come across this post/advertisement so far and there’s no information if Twitter has taken down the disclaimer or if Samsung has retrieved the tweet. Whatever happens next, we'll keep you updated.
