Even well-intentioned fakes can go wrong. Remember the White Helmets' mannequin challenge? It's still being used to argue that they always fake their videos.
Hardly an interpretation that's made in good faith, but it's out there.
Ill-intentioned fakes come back to haunt the perpetrator even more. Remember the Russian MoD's edited satellite pics "proving" that Ukraine shot down MH17, as exposed by @bellingcat and @ArmsControlWonk?
#OPCW hacking case: we've already had the Russian government trying to dismiss the latest UK / NL claims about the #GRU. That's tactic number 1.
Up next, expect attempts to distort, distract and dismay.
Distort. We saw this with the Skripal suspects, portrayed as "civilians" and snow-shy tourists.
Expect attempts to say that the photos were faked, the evidence was made up, and / or the men were harmless visitors on a diplomatic visit to fix the Embassy wifi.
Distract. Accuse the accusers.
Expect the arguments, "The West hacks people too," or "You killed civilians in Libya / Afghanistan / Vietnam / insert name here."
Which doesn't justify use of CW on civilians, or attempts to cover it up.
Looks like someone tried to get hashtag SkripalHoax to trend overnight.
822 mentions. It really didn't do very well.
Let's look at some of the arguments.
Probably the most popular in the pro-Kremlin crowd was the claim that the Met Police photos of the arrival in Gatwick had the same timestamp, and therefore must have been photoshopped.
... unless there's more than one arrival channel at Gatwick, and they were walking together.