# Why are so many videos online backwards? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 3, 2025, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826 "2025-02-03T16:06:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/1 "2025-02-03T16:06:01Z")
YouTube, etc… There are a lot of videos online that are mirror image AKA backwards. Looks like the steering wheel on a car is on the right side, and so on. Why? ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/2 "2025-02-03T16:07:13Z")
It’s to get around automated checks for copyrighted material. You’ll also see things like added lines on the video for the same reason. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/3 "2025-02-03T16:24:31Z")
It fools the AI copyright monitoring. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/4 "2025-02-03T16:42:34Z")
Don’t most selfie cameras on phones reverse the images? Or something like that? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/5 "2025-02-03T18:05:28Z")
Some do, but pretty sure the OP is talking about videos where the content is reposted. That’s the most common case for mirrored video. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/6 "2025-02-03T18:16:12Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > You’ll also see things like added lines on the video for the same reason. Or sped up. Or, confusingly, at normal speed but with the audio pitch changed, for the same reasons. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/7 "2025-02-03T18:54:30Z")
This drives me batshit. I guess these people never owned a film camera or simple digital camera where the images are as a person would see it - never a mirror image. ---
**Author:** ![Xocomil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xocomil/32/14927_2.png) [@Xocomil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xocomil)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/8 "2025-02-03T19:05:00Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > I guess these people never owned a film camera or simple digital camera I think that’s a fair assumption for a lot of people under thirty. A lot of them have owned an instant film camera, however. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/9 "2025-02-03T19:07:05Z")
But it’s not stupidity, it’s a calculated effort to make money they didn’t earn, by re-posting copyrighted material with enough changes to fool the software that would otherwise find it and take it down. My least favorite instance of this is where the listing has a movie name but lists the wrong stars, or even the wrong movie name too. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/10 "2025-02-03T19:32:29Z")
Beaten to the punch but there are two reasons: 1. If it’s reposted or copyrighted material, it’s some attempt to circumvent the bots looking for this (though I would have thought these bots would be smart enough to verify against both a mirrored and regular copy of content) 2. If it’s an original posting, it likely was recorded that way and the option to flip it to normal was not turned on (most modern cellphones, as far as I know, will automatically flip it, but I remember older ones didn’t, and I don’t know what webcams typically do.) ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/11 "2025-02-03T19:47:07Z")
Becaue they’re stolen. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Gordon\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_G)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/12 "2025-02-03T20:01:51Z")
Taking a selfie with a phone is like looking at yourself in a mirror: It will appear backwards. Many phones will let you flip such an image after the fact, but the default mirror-image effect is deliberate: If the flipping were active while taking the picture, the hand manipulations required to recenter the image would be counter-intuitive. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/13 "2025-02-03T20:36:23Z")
My phone shows a mirror view in the screen in selfie mode, but the recorded footage and photos are not mirrored (there’s probably a setting to mirror the actual footage, but the default is normal, right-way around video that obviously preserves things like text appearing in the footage). But if it’s not a vlog or something, the footage is typically reversed as an attempt to evade copyright detection. I would say this is the majority reason, simply because the majority of online video is now not original. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/14 "2025-02-03T20:50:02Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > I guess these people never owned a film camera or simple digital camera where the images are as a person would see it - never a mirror image. I used to take slides with my film camera. If I loaded them in the projector the wrong way around, I’d get mirror images. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2025, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/15 "2025-02-04T00:28:51Z")
It’s certainly an attempt to get around the copyright-detection bots. I rather doubt it actually works, though: If the video’s still up, it’s just because the bot hasn’t gotten around to noticing it yet. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2025, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/16 "2025-02-04T00:37:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I rather doubt it actually works, though… I agree. It is trivial for the automated systems to detect a mirrored video. It probably worked for a couple months way back when this was new but it is not worth the effort today. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2025, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/17 "2025-02-04T16:52:38Z")
Some video players give you a “flip the video” option. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2025, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/18 "2025-02-04T18:02:51Z")
In the past, I’ve seen stolen audiobooks on YouTube that had both silent breaks and screechy music breaks. Not sure how long that lasted. ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-videos-online-backwards/1013826/19 "2025-02-05T03:13:18Z")
I was looking at one recently about bridges, actual footage of the bridge showed the correct driving side, but “drone” shots showed the opposite. The latter therefore seemingly AI slop, but really slack effort if so.