Here is a warning you wished someone gave you sooner: the world is not merely getting digital; it is being rebuilt at high speed while we sleep. Each month the tools that move our money, prove our identity, and settle disputes, change the rules without asking. In the Caribbean we have a habit of waiting to see how it plays out, then discovering the shoreline moved overnight. One morning you wake up and the bank branch is a login screen, your signature is a six‑digit code, and the “referee” in an argument is a timestamp you cannot fake. Authority is relocating from counters to code, from buildings to apps. If we do not learn this language now, we will be governed by systems we do not understand and priced out of choices we did not know existed. Start paying attention, or wake up to a country that feels foreign in your own hands.
Now picture two neighbours on the same street. Keisha links her phone number to her login, uses an authenticator app, and keeps recovery codes on paper in a drawer. Mr Browne reuses one password everywhere and leaves his phone easy to access. One evening they both get the same fake bank text. Keisha verifies the link, reports it, and sleeps peacefully. Mr Browne curiously clicks it, his account is hacked, WhatsApp data vanishes, salary reroutes, NIS login locks, and he spends two weeks in lines trying to prove who he is. Same village, different habits. The cloud did not choose favourites. It rewarded the person who could prove, control, and produce a clean trail.
Recently, some Barbadians learnt this the hard way. On April 23, 2025 its Central Bank warned that a deepfake of the Governor was circulating on WhatsApp. By May 16th and 17th they warned again about a lookalike site, centralbankorg.com, urging people to reverify. The legitimate site? centralbank.org.bb. This harrowing account occurred just next door, so it’s not a Netflix plot.
Your eyes still help; they just shouldn’t finish the job. Faces can be copied, voices borrowed, and “LIVE” can be recorded last week. Treat the first look as a clue, not a conclusion. Verify it through a channel the scammer does not control: do not click their link or call their number. Instead, manually type the official website you already know (e.g., your bank’s exact domain), call the number already saved in your contacts (not the one in the message), and check an independent, time-stamped record such as your account statement, a receipt, or the relevant government portal.
Seeing is step one; proving through an independent path is step two. That second step is the new common sense.
Deepfakes live on urgency, so slow the moment. Give any “urgent” request a pause long enough for a bus ride from Sandy Bay to Kingstown. When you control the pace and the path, the performance runs out of script. After that pause, one of two things happens: either the message checks out in two independent places, or it collapses because it can’t. One liar cannot wear two perfect masks at once.
Next, keep one analogue test: a shared secret. Families and teams should choose a question that never appears in a WhatsApp text search: Auntie’s middle name, the dish we cooked last Christmas, the nickname from primary school. When a call arrives in a friend’s exact voice and hurry, pause and ask him. A real friend answers without thinking; a faker hesitates, dodges, or drops the line. That brief silence is the tell. You’re not being rude; you’re protecting the relationship from an impersonator.
For public clips and political click-bait, use the triangle. Check the Who, the Where, and the When. If the account is new or oddly clean, the who is weak. If the background shows canefields in “Calliaqua,” the where is wrong. If the sun sits high in a video posted as “7 p.m.,” the when is lying. Any side that fails, the triangle collapses. You do not need forensic gear. You need patience and a habit of asking one more question than the scammer expects.
Finally, train your circle. Tell friends, “If you ever need urgent help, say the code word first.” Tell your parents, “If a video of me appears saying I lost my phone, call the number you already have.” Tell your boss, “No approvals by voice note.” These sentences are boring to a scammer and beautiful to a free person. They give you back the right to believe carefully and to act confidently.
Deepfakes win when we crave speed more than truth. They lose when we make truth slow down and show ID. Do that, and the world stays recognisable. Not because images cannot lie, but because your habits will not.
