From AI to deepfakes, the intersection of image, truth, and deception has become a focal point of contemporary discourse. While prevailing narratives often frame contemporary visual manipulation as an unprecedented technological phenomenon requiring technological remediation, this project examines its historical precedents and enduring philosophical implications by posing a key question: Are these truth-destabilizing effects and their resulting discourse genuinely novel, or do they represent continuities with historical approaches to and discourse surrounding visual manipulation? Drawing from research on photography’s role in knowledge formation and world-building under Stalin, this project focuses on contemporary Russian information warfare, examining manipulated images not merely as propaganda but as active agents in reality construction. By analyzing the critical yet often overlooked question of why images are manipulated and how they affect the viewer, this project examines how visual information manipulation shapes the receiver in technologically mediated visual cultures.