Powerful entity can tell you to install their root certificate just like it happens in China. This is a different problem.
Advertisers are going to want to postprocess images and have the green check.
You could of course fake green checkmark in CSS but this is already an issue with faking other browser UI elements, including address bar–it’s a known problem.
One way to solve this is having a browser picker, that is a button you click in trusted area of browser UI that lets you inspect any image on the page. Similar thing is possible with smartphone UI, you go to app overview/carousel and long press on an image in app, this launches photo inspection portal.
(1) a trusted application
(2) using a builtin device camera
(3) of a device running attested trusted operating system
(4) and any subsequent edits reference such photo’s original hash.
Hopefully stronger assertions could come in the future. This is just to combat digital forgeries and synthetically generated images. It also does nothing against real-world forgeries like actors wearing costumes or makeup.
That's the opposite of what we should do. If you do case by case then people will always find reasons why it's no big deal if "their" side did it while it's really bad when the other side did it.
No, we need to universally condemn this. No matter who did it and when and how. This is lying and propaganda, and it's bad even if I agree with the ends. But the means are to be condemned by everybody.
Kind of the dual to "I disagree with what you are saying but I'll fight for your right to say it." It's now "I agree with what you are trying to achieve but I'll fight against the way in which you are trying to achieve it."