Watermarks are a form of branding to prevent content from being shared without credit. It provides the source of marketing by showing your name or account information in case someone screenshots or reposts your image. There are also digital watermarks that verify the source of the image by putting it in the pixels of the image itself. Several images on social media use watermarks, such as those in posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Many social media users have the ability to re-share a post to a new platform without retaining a connection to the original post, which can cause the spread of mis/disinformation. Some users manipulate the images to give themselves credit for it even though they have no rights to the image whatsoever.

Watermarking could mitigate this disinformation tactic by tagging images with a link to the conversational context through which it moves. These watermarks could be read in other parts of the same website or by other websites to either automatically link backwards or create a flag or warning.

It is highly recommended that users give credits to the original post if sharing a post, or watermark images that are their own. Designers can improve the design of the platform to prevent the spread of mis/disinformation by providing a warning when an image is being shared to ensure credit is given. They can also work with software engineers to come up with a feature that detects watermarks in images or image credits.