The Zapruder film, altered by the CIA during the assassination weekend, is an early example of this form of media manipulation.
"The Zapruder film, altered by the CIA ..."
Please cite a reliable source supporting that claim.
48
Just means that pictures will lose all credibility as evidence. Just like before there were cameras.
6
When George Orwell wrote "1984", it was in the early era of television. Two way communications was done by radio, telephone, and in some cases, telegraph and wireless (Morse code over radio waves). The idea video surveillance, was something seen in comic books, action serials, and science fiction novels.
Orwell did write about a society which could manipulate and change history. Not only that, but create false histories that were made to be the truth.
Today, what exists is something only "Big Brother" could only dream of. Smart phones, two way camera, CCTV, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and tools like Photoshop. The Internet is full of apps and software to let anyone create any kind of video; or modify any kind of video or photo.
If "1984" made people shudder in 1949, 70 years later the Orwellian World has arrived, and it was done on a volunteer basis. Siri, Alexa, Google Home, Google Meet, camera to protect just about everything, and a means to share those camera with everyone.
The question is how long it takes for politicians to make spy cams a requirement. We already have a president, and leaders of other nations, which manipulates the truth over various media sources. We are already in video age of the Ministry of Truth.
HG Wells in "The Shape of Things To Come" showed how society morphed from war to dictatorship to state control to utopia.
The masses may realize their fate when Well's and Orwell's haunting visions become reality.
20
Speaking up against the moderation of free thought and speech is a flammable issue now and it appears that there are many who take issue with us rebels. It's a real bore to hear debate and ideas from those who want to keep things pure and unadulterated. Suppressing well or ill intended content is a quagmire waiting to happen. This moral movement against "DEEP FAKES" lacks any reasonable philosophy and reads more like insane ways to maintain control.
3
Question everything. An unexamined life is a dangerous thing.
14
The genie's out of the box, preceded by fake news and fake elections and fake everything else. This will be "virtually" impossible to control because it's a virus / bacteria for which we have no natural defenses. Just like the First Nations and isolated hunter-gatherer tribes who fell victim to diseases brought by European conquerors, we are now being exposed to something for which we have no defense. Welcome to the new Dark Ages.
9
"We live in a time when knowing the origin of an internet video is just as important as knowing what it shows."
It's not that simple. Reporters commonly use confidential sources who could be arrested and imprisoned if they are exposed. Those sources may leak confidential documents or videos that are of public interest.
In one case, the source of a leaked classified document was identified by "dots" that encoded the date the document was printed:
The Mysterious Printer Code That Could Have Led the FBI to Reality Winner
Many color printers embed grids of dots that allow law enforcement to track every document they output.
by Alexis C. Madrigal
Jun 6, 2017
The Atlantic
2
All these people fearing big brother if people are not anonymous with on-line content. I wager a lot of people neither provide content nor comment on-line. What's so different about in person group contexts and on line group contexts? Most people in person working in groups say little and those who speak are known. Why is in line so different and so special so that anonymity reigns supreme on line. However the problem is requiring verification of identity on line. The legalities of that would seem to be a different issue. It would be a huge fight to require it though private entities could voluntarily do so.
"Most of the time, you could trust that a camera captured roughly what you would have seen with your own eyes. So if you trust your own perception, you have nearly as much reason to trust the video."
There is no such thing as "perception" in the sense of raw data, without interpretation, being impressed upon the mind. Perception is almost always accompanied by interpretation.
In a classic experiment on perception, a subject is shown an image that appears to be a rabbit or a duck. The subject's interpretation of the image may "flip" between the rabbit and the duck. That is evidence that perception *requires* interpretation.
Thus, perception should be understood as a SKILL that must be learned and practiced. See:
"Mastermind : how to think like Sherlock Holmes" by Maria Konnikova.
The same problem occurs with photographs. For example, a telephoto lens can make objects appear closer than they are. That's what led to the claim that Trump "stalked" Clinton during a presidential debate.
In a photo published by the Times, Trump appears to be close to Clinton, yet he is standing immediately behind his chair -- note the position of his left hand, holding a microphone, on the back of his chair. The claim about Trump "stalking" is repeated in the headline, despite the evidence of the photo showing otherwise. None of this involves "fakery", just unskilled interpretation of a photograph:
Clinton’s Choices When Trump Stalked Her at Debate
Letters
Sept. 3, 2017
New York Times
5
You’ve got to be kidding me! I watched that debate and he paced behind her in a menacing way. I saw it and so did anyone else with eyes watching the debate. I don’t remember the photo you are referring to but I clearly remember watching the debate and screaming at the tv that he was stalking her.
And this comment proves the point in question. Bias influences opinions but not the facts
29
There are other things to look at besides video. Video is strictly entertainment from here on out.
1
In Orwell's 1984, Big Brother is a face and voice on the telescreen. But no one has ever seen him. How can this be? Enter deepfake technology. Somewhere, Orwell is smiling a sardonic smile.
Max Headroom for President. Wait, he already is.
3
"To know whether a disputed video is real, we’ll need to know who made it."
The word "real" is highly ambiguous. The correct technical term is "authenticate". Thus, an image may or may not be authenticated. See:
"Photo Forensics" by Hany Farid (MIT Press, 2016).
"The [book is the] first comprehensive and detailed presentation of techniques for authenticating digital images."
5
Of course we should know the origin of the fake clip. Why in the world would one expect to have a "right" to be anonymous? Reporters who publish do not have "cover." Why should this deceptive individual?
10
Speaking of fakes, do you know how to definitively tell when Trump isn't telling the truth?
Answer: His lips are moving.
6
The sea of lies and deceptions keeps growing in the deteriorating judicial, political and social norms of government and society. Will we be able to extricate ourselves from this constitutional and environmental decline as more people become hoodwinked and filled with hate by a Trump administration?
3
The new reality is that 1984 and Animal Farm are in full stride and it may have been longer than we believe.
5
Many of the bigots who marched in Charlottesville were outed to their communities and lost jobs, respect, and more. On the other end of the income scale dark money donors slander and manipulate free from accountability. Maybe illuminating sources is the only way to keep things real.
9
Dare I predict that this is the most Orwellian outcome that can be imagined in our lifetime?
I live in digital marketing and know its possibilities, both what’s currently possible and what we will experience in the very near future. Video manipulation currently is where desktop publishing was in the 1980s.
My family, Trump supporters all, would not think twice about clicking on, watching 15 seconds, agreeing with, and forwarding to their entire email list -all without a second thought or any attempt to find out the source. Forget follow up reporting that it’s false (William Barr anyone?), the narrative is there and further stokes the anger.
Pray to god this is the Nigerian email scam that eventually becomes so pervasive that we eventually discount all reporting except for live and from trusted sources.
7
We are going to have to pay more attention to what politicians actually do rather than what they say. And the credibility of news photographers and reporters will be even more important.
4
I never really bought in to advertising. Consider the source. I am fortunate that I came to trust only a few news and information sources. And as always, question it all. I hear people passing along beliefs often, but few convey truths.
3
One of the favorite politicians of the old GOP did say, "Trust but Verify". They no longer care much for him anymore. They now would rather follow Trump's motto "Believe and do not Inquire".
The GOP is a tool of Trump. I fear it may end up destroying America. Unless we get lucky and Americans wake up and vote them out.
8
In Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 “Lost World,” photographic evidence of a living dinosaur is rejected because photos are so easily faked. Visual fakery is very old. Deep fakes represent a difference degree that amounts to a difference in kind. I suspect that is because they attack all of our truth detectors at once—seeing, hearing, and sourcing.
4
Paywall on major newspapers that writes opinion, editorial that is read by policy makers is akin to restrictive voting right policies. If readers cannot access, say NYT, LAT they will turn their attention to non-conventional news outlets, some of them could be fake as well and believe what they see or hear.
2
It should be possible to create cameras that digitally sign each video and photo captured with a serial number, date and time. These digital signatures can be verified by news organizations using a public key infrastructure. This technology is routinely used in the TV broadcast industry to prevent signal theft. In fact, Congress can enact legislation to require such verification technology.
2
Most still digital still cameras place background meta data that records the time, date, camera make, model, lens size and setting, etc, etc, etc. on the original file, which is usually pretty difficult to remove if at all. Not sure about video.
1
"... Congress can enact legislation to require such verification technology [in cameras]."
That would be a very dangerous extension of the surveillance state. Even stolen digital images could then be tracked to their source.
Anyway, such "legislation" would probably be unconstitutional under the 1st Amendment.
And, as a practical matter, digital signatures require a secret key to be created. Where would that secret key be created and stored?
Most of the time, you could trust that a camera captured roughly what you would have seen with your own eyes.
Oh really? Tell that to CNN "in" Iraq. Selectively edited footage has been used by the media since the advent of the newsreel.
Get out here with the historical revisionist nonsense.
3
@Who
And of course, by its very nature, all footage is
'selectively filmed' in the first place. The viewer
sees what the photographer chose to focus on.
2
A picture is worth a thousand lies.
these days, a picture may contain a thousand lies.
Verifying the authenticity of documents can be established using a digital signature by a trusted third party is now a standard practice.A similar approach should be developed for content. Any content created must be "signed" by a trusted third party that establishes the author as a credible person or entity. Special software embedded in browsers and apps would look for the signature and verify the authenticity of the content. It works for documents since even a small alteration in documents would render them fake. This is not necessarily true for content which can undergo benign alteration, such as brightness adjustment, yet still be real. There fore the challenge.
Let's add up where on the political spectrum fakes come from. Care to make a graph, NYT?
2
Not to be uncouth, but someone should point out the elephant in the room. Namely, the porn industry is the major source driving the ever-improving 'deep fake' technology. And if you think about that, it is really horrifying on so many levels.
Our legislators need to enact strong laws protecting private individuals from 'deep fake' exploitation. Knowingly down loading deep fake material of an exploitative nature should be a crime. Maybe it starts with the occasional celebrity (which is bad enough) but as the technology keeps getting better, every person will be vulnerable to this despicable video slander.
And not to belabor the point, but then how long will it be until such technology is used for those newish 3D goggles we are starting to see advertised everywhere. What happens when slimeballs can rather easily use these deep-fake computer programs to create sex fantasies of co-workers and children? Your daughter. Your son. You.
This is something legislators should get in front of the curve on. It is so easy to see the shaped of our warped future coming toward us.
2
Shawn Brooks should be liable to defamation of character charges.
8
Regina Rini's essay is helpful, but we all need to understand that our national naiveté about images, narratives and the media runs much, much deeper than this issue of "deep fakes."
We need receive everything with a healthy degree of skepticism, whatever the source. Good citizens need to be good critical thinkers. That's especially true in times as polarized as ours. In his classic text "Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film," Erik Barnouw warned audiences not to expect objective truth.
"Documentarists make endless choices: of topic, people, vistas, angles, lenses, juxtapositions, sounds, words. Each selection is an expression of a point of view, whether conscious or not, acknowledged or not... Even behind the first step of selection, choice of topic, there is a motive or a set of motives. Someone feels there is something about the topic that needs clarification, and that if one can document aspects of it, ... the work will yield something useful in comprehension, agreement, or action. Still, the cry for objectivity is constantly used to lambaste independent documentarists. Often the word 'propaganda' is invoked...
"But of course a propagandist role is involved. One can hardly imagine ... any kind of communication that is not propaganda - in the sense of trying to present evidence let may enlarge understanding and change ideas. A documentary cannot be 'the truth.' It is evidence, testimony. Diverse testimony is the heart of the democratic processes."
5
Those interested in "inoculating" an unsuspecting public against "deep fakes" should commission the creation of high quality comic "deep fakes" gently satirizing politicians of ALL political persuasions. These "inoculating" fakes should be released all at once and as a set to demonstrate and to draw wide attention to the capabilities of current technology. If the public is not warned by such demonstrations it will be impossible to convince them that the first weaponized high quality deep fake is not real.
2
The boy that cried “Wolf!” comes into play here. As fake videos proliferate the value of any videos as “testimony” will diminish.
3
RexNYC wrote: "Our children must be taught to think for themselves from the earliest age possible."
I tried like this: Kids, do you believe something because it is true, or is it true because you believe it? And how do you know the difference?
I also used it in half a century of teaching.
4
According to cosmologists, the universe — over another several billion years —- is evolving towards a uniform distribution of mass and energy, entirely featureless, carrying no information whatsoever. Seems like we humans are just trying to stay ahead of the game. Mass media, absent any meaning at all, might even be an improvement.
"...even if it's not ideal to have amateur political operatives exposed to the ire of the internet...." Why not? If someone is prepared to try to destroy the reputation of someone they dislike by lying about them (which a fake video does), I see no reason why they should not pay the price in their own reputation. The only way to discourage such behavior is to force the perpetrators to pay a price for it.
5
Post-modern philosophers such as Derida and Foucalt insist there is no absolute truth. When reports in journalism and history are written or photographed, producer bias, both conscious and subconscious, determines how the story is told. In print, however, it is broadcast as established fact.
This is old news. What Regina Rini warns against is propaganda masquerading as truth. It is explicitly marketed to decieve or to appeal to people’s basest passions.
Once upon a time editors of journals , social scientists, newspapers, broadcast media, documentary film makers all demanded author identification, fact checking, explicit attribution of statements to identified sources. Opinion pieces required substantiating foot notes, end notes and bibliographic sources.
Today, many venues on the internet ,in a misquided allegiance to unrestricted free expression, accept the work of uncredited authors. It applies no editorial review to substantiate published content, methods, sources.
Add to this absurdidity, the rapid advance in technology that allowss the broadcast of counterfeit media indistinguishable from “the real thing” , and we have truly entered the Orwellian universe.
Attempting to punish propagandists post facto cannot succeed. Holding internet sites to the same standards of identification and verification that constrained all preinternet media will be a good first step.
4
The doctored video of Ms Pelosi is very obvious. Anyone with common sense can see it has been manipulated, they may not know exactly what has been done but they could see it has been altered.
This speaks to the willingness of unintelligent individuals who believe this is real to accept garbage. It is also in the same league of the republicans who spout "alternate facts" and the lack of questions being by their supports who also accept these statements.
Common sense is no longer common, it has become a rarity indeed.
4
There is a very good reason for exposing fake videos and their creators. It can be summed up in an anti-maga hat: "Make lying bad again."
3
What is needed is a method of "branding " videos to identify the source. Similar to the way U.S. currency is "branded " to identify counterfeit cash. Not being a computer engineer I have no idea how it could be done but I am confident that the creative forces behind today's internet is up to resolving this problem. From what I understand ( very little ) some version of block chain technology might be developed to verify the provenance of a video .
The fallacy is that we believe that reproductions are somehow the equivalent of perception. With or without digital manipulation, the evidence of video/photography is ALWAYS suspect. We just choose not to believe it.
Do we ask, "why was it shot?" "who is shooting it?", "what did they wish to capture?" etc. The fact of choosing a subject to capture on film/digital is a political/intellectual statement that distorts reality. It is NOT a faithful reproduction of reality.
Video/photograph is not and never has been better than "testimony"'; it is equally subject to bias and fault. The sooner we unlearn what we have learned and have a healthy skepticism toward these media the better off we'll be.
4
@OneView
Your comment should be a "NYT Pick"
(Who chooses, and why ?)
1
It seems obvious our eyes can no longer determine what is real or what is fake. I can only hope tech wizards will devise AI analysis software that can detect when original video has been hacked/altered to create fake video. Hopefully such detection will be automatically tagged "FAKED/ALTERED" with bold letters.
2
If we or any democracy like to minimize, if not stopping altogether, the influence of Post-truth or Alternative-fact or Deepfake, then we have to minimize the role of religion, preferably no religion at all, while raising our children and in education system. We now know that religious allegiance affect the same part of the brain (front lobe) that's affected by drugs and other hallucinating agents (https://is.gd/Y3Uci1). It impair our sense of truth, ability to think logically, see/listen/experience things which is not there at all. These religious people, irrespective of formal educational degrees and job designation, prefer to live in a make-believe world. Many/most politicians & businessmen around the world do exploit that "human" tendency. That's one of the reasons why we must separate religion from public policy, as our founding fathers wanted. In fact, it's now proved that religion itself need royal or government patronization to spread or even to survive. And yet, we are making things worse by witnessing growing influence of religion in Government in most secular democracies around the world including in the US (mainly since Reagan era and for which a person like Trump could become an American President.)
3
Glenn Greenwald, whom I admire in many instances, is absolutely, irrevocably wrong in this particular instance and he's behaving like a naive fool. Simply, if you intend to disinform the public by fabricating and disseminating patently false information, you take your chances being revealed. That how it works, Glen. Get used to it. You don't get a pass - or sympathy - just because you're a lowly day laborer who amuses himself churning out fake news to spite the political opposition. I mean, really Glenn, wake up!
4
Provenance matters.
1
Here's something I recommend doing when reading anything these day, from a NYT op ed to a internet meme. If you don't know the source, but detect a definite bias in the opinion, do a little Wikipedia search on the writer and his/her affiliations.
In this case it was simple as googling The Washington Examiner. In the opening paragraph of the piece, it is identified as being "conservative" and "employing many prominent conservative writers."
Hardly rocket science, but quod erat demonstrandum
@calhouri
Fine, but of course you're aware Wikipedia isn't a particularly reliable source either, depending on the topic. Irony here.
When this is combined with deep data analysis and content creation like what Cambridge Analytica could do then we are looking at anarchy.
1
The deepfake videos example only carries over the troubling and painful challenge that truth and reason have been facing in recent decades. One may also add that this further shows in plain sight, so to speak, the collapse of ethics.
Our president is the liar in chief and might get reelected, more than 50% college students think that this is normal and acceptable to cheat on assignments and exams, the number one news network is built up on egregious misrepresentation of facts, even the Evangelical church will support a lying, cheating president because it helps further their own agenda, Republicans knowingly reject hard facts and science regarding climate change, our children are shot in schools and this is tolerable violence, etc.
Our whole society is sick and undergoing values disintegration. It appears that deepfake is indeed a working metaphor for what America is becoming.
4
Terrifying and yet another weapon to be used by Russia and Trump
2
This does not look good. It has been alarming enough to watch my online friends, predominantly liberals, get duped over and over again by stories and photos that, with just a research skepticism and research, could have been revealed for what they are: fake. If this smart college-educated crowd is so easily conned, I hold out little hope that ANYONE will have the skills and gumption to see through a deepfake video before it's already done its damage. I believe we have entered a new phase of technological dysfunction: the tyranny of the visual. I stopped watching cable news long ago and I restrict myself on "social" media to humor and pics of people's kids, holidays, and favorite meals. My understanding of the latest developments in the world come almost overwhelmingly from print and online sources I know enough about to trust. I can't see another way or remaining well-informed.
2
And don't forget ... What we DON'T see is just as manipulable, just as orchestrated, just as subjective as what we do see. Which images are real, but we're not seeing them?
2
Dear Professor Rini,
Since when does any thinking person believe any single thing she sees, hears, feels, senses, reads, learns, or otherwise apprehends?
Permanent, unchangeable facts are as elusive as a Higgs-Boson particle, and genuine wisdom is more elusive than that.
So let us believe the stars in our eyes and ruthlessly fact-check everything else.
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
3
Much of the fear about deep-fakes has yet to materialize. See below:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/5/18251736/deepfake-propaganda-misinformation-troll-video-hoax
Ah....Max Headroom - 20 Minutes into the Future has become reality.
Remember the "Trojan Sheep"?
Our environments contribute to what is potentially available for us to consume.
Our economy has enculturated us all in many common and distinctly different ways, with many of the differences stimulated by our social connections and by our individual choices.
Orwell--to name only one--warned us about how we can become controlled by all forms of messages.
Are we seeing anything different from what we were warned about--except perhaps by degree?
We all need to consider consuming less of everything that is not contributing to our individual and our common wellbeing.
That might leave some time and space for us to form and maintain more direct connections with each other, the kinds of connections that are the only hope of reversing the cultural evolution that brought us to become to dominated by our technologies and literally disconnected from each other.
1
This is incredibly scary. It seems like photos and videos have always been up to a particular brand of scrutiny because of shopping and doctoring, but it has never been so easy to turn real-life, straight facing video into propaganda. This is nothing like a blurry video of Bigfoot or a doctored image of a UFO, it's HD video of someone speaking right to a camera made to look like something it isn't. The uninformed public is not ready for this.
1
Trump and Fox - welcome to post truth America. Recommended reading - "Post Truth: The New War on Truth And How To Fight Back," (2017) Matthew D'Ancona.
1
So now it is unethical to expose criminals?
1
@Someone else - there is nothing criminal about posting a video of Pelosi. This isn't China.
1
@DRS
Of course , it is not criminal until it pass that line.
Believe me , when you understand when did you pass that line, you will see at your door, CIA or FBI agents.
"(Mr. Brooks denies creating the video, though according to the Daily Beast, Facebook confirmed he was the first to upload it.)"
That doesn't prove that Brooks "created" the video. Someone else could have created the video, and Brooks simply uploaded it.
1
Two things:
1. If you're consuming one news source, and not applying critical thinking to these obviously extreme things, you shouldn't be allowed to vote (I'm exaggerating for effect)
2. If somebody doctored a video about Trump like this, the entire mid to Southern part of the U.S. would explode.
Enough with this hypocrisy
3
@Pete You are not exaggerating - paying attention to politics should be a requirement for voting. We need to get the money out of elections and ban all election advertising - too many people are swayed by dishonest, emotional, ten second sound bites on TV, as misleading as doctored videos.
1
@Pete
There are LOTS of 'Doctored Donald' videos.
Google "Jimmy Kimmel Drunk Donald Trump"
If someone were to post a clip not in the context of
'Jimmy Kimmel Live', there are people who would
believe it. Only once (and he airs these regularly,
or at least did before the Pelosi knock-off) have
I heard Mr. Kimmel state (correctly) that The
Donald does not drink. The videos are made the
same way, by slowing them down just enough.
1
A shame that technology has moved to allow this to happen. Goodby to “The Camera Doesn’t Lie”.
1
@Ken Duffield
Except that cameras have always lied.
There wasn't some Golden Age when photos or images told truth.
2
DeepFake videos are just the natural next thing in the evolution of the right-wing's facist disinformation campaign. And this is not brought about by "both sides" as many comments here in refer to. Look-up and read the "Powell Memorandum" as the playbook from the early 70's. This along with televangalistic programs, the John Birch society, the KKK, and the American Nazi party have been non-stop streaming misinformation. They denigrate "fairness" about race, socialism, liberals, ACLU, and our earned benefits of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and food stamp programs. Let's not forget about the shrinking Unionism of America which directly correlates to the huge wealth gap of inequity in annual income.
This just touches on a very small portion of how far down the road to collapse we are at the neverending stonewalling of progress we've had to accept.
These days huge amounts of money are being siphoned from public education, and the safety programs mentioned above. The federal governmental agencies are forbidden to even discuss the "C.C." words. Climate Change apparently doesn't exist if trump "doesn't believe it." He's officially banned the use of any reference to it in written and oral records.
DeepFake videos are the next big step into "Bizzaro World" reality. We had better get rid of him and his allies from having anything to do with running the government.
3
Although the Nazis may have been the first to demonize the press with the term Luegenpresse, it was Trump who made it an art form and evidently made it somewhat acceptable, like his thousands of lies. When he used the phrase "don't believe what you see or read", he took a page right out of the novel '1984' and made dystopia acceptable. His attacks on the free press, enshrined in the Constitution, in multiple forms, including trying to get people to drop ATT contracts to hurt CNN, constitute impeachable offenses, done in the open for all to see, who care.
4
Unfortunately, the damage is done whether or not a story turns out to be fake and those who create this know it. They don't care if they are uncovered. It gets them even more exposure for the lie. All this talk about the fake video of Nancy Pelosi being drunk has put that issue front and center. Is she drunk or isn't she? From now on people will look at her with that on their mind. The media is magnifying the problem when they over report on the story and show the doctored footage as they report it is fake. It is the same when repeating a known lie as it is called a lie. The story sticks. The responsible thing to do is not show the footage and not repeat the lie. Just tell the facts. "The person lied (without repeating the lie), these are the facts." "Fake video is out there. Be aware. This is the real video.
2
Fake videos are one thing.
But when the president of the U.S., the PRESIDENT OF THE U.S., sends them out on Twitter, that's the deepfake we need to be addressing right now.
7
"What? Do you believe me, or your own eyes?" I think Groucho Marx said that, but this is no comedy. I can't even begin to teach myself how to figure out deep fake vids. I barely have time enough to read the straight news. Ah, but there you have it, at least for me. I read, and my watching time is limited to "real" fiction and documentaries. When I sense that someone is stretching reality in print, I have a dozen or more sources to research the ideas presented....if I have the time and desire to do so. I guess we really do have to do our own work, and keep the viewing time to a minimum.
Back in the day (1970) I joined a protest rally, but the news cameras only covered people being arrested later on for being "disruptive". But prior to this, the police were grabbing signs out of people's hands and harassing students who attended.
From the beginning, we were herded into an isolated area away from the event and the media spotlight as if we didn't even exist. Some of us (well- me) watched the coverage on television in amazement, while others with more experience sat in silence and resignation. So now we have digital manipulation, and even a lot of the movies we call entertainment have few lines spoken and little point made, but CGI "is" the movie. Reality, like nature films, fill me we inspiration and wonder, while Captain Marvel was (at least to me) boring- except for the cat which was cute.
People who actually met Hilary Clinton thought she was not only intelligent but likable. But the television version was a show, a production, and she looked a little "over-prepared". She should have openly admitted talking to a camera lens was more difficult than talking to a person, while the competition loved performing spontaneously, with dark humor as he came up with insulting names for everyone who stood in his way. It was disturbing and quite distracting, but that was the whole point. I often turn to (at least some) radio programs instead, since I find that they're more coherent, and significantly more informative. TV could have been much better, right??
1
@flyinointment I was at an anti-war demonstration in Portland OR in 1966. The protesters were clean cut, and the news crews were at a loss who to film. Then one of them shouted "There's one!", and the crews dashed across the room to film the one long hair in attendance.
1
It's kind of revealing that Ms. Rini does mention that satire is protected by our Constitution.
The fake video of Pelosi could easily have been made as satire. If people who share it don't realize it's satire, it's not the author's fault.
John Stewart started what is now a very prevalent form of liberal satire that conservatives hilariously accused of being fake news or even libelous when it first became popular. Yet many liberals were quoted as saying that Stewart was their primary source of "news".
This is a spectrum of many colors of grey. "Deepfakes" are just another shade.
1
@Paul: That's the same lame excuse Trump frequently uses: He says something ridiculous, horrifying, or just plain stupid, and then when he's called out on it, he claims that he was "just joking." So-called satire is also a common approach taken by so-called alt-right groups to shield their hate speech and incitements to violence.
Yes, satire is and should be protected. Jon Stewart clearly presented himself as a comedian, and he also based his comedy on widely available facts and news reports. The same for Bill Mahrer, John Oliver, and Samantha Bee.
By contrast, the faked Pelosi video was not presented as satire. Nor was Pizzagate, the "Birther" conspiracy, the putative Parkland "tragedy actors," or the countless other conspiracies promulgated for profit by Alex Jones and others including the President himself. Those are just lies, not satire, and are spread to gain money and/or power.
1
Propagandists have been manipulating visual images since the first time a visual image was used for propaganda. You don't think the Emperor Nero really had a heroic Chris Hemsworth body, do you? Yet that is precisely how his colleagues were typically represented. Stalin was fond of airbrushing his 'purged' associates from photos, and FDR artfully staged his appearances to make it appear he could walk in videos. Propaganda has not become more ubiquitous or clever: the Pelosi video tampering was actually pretty obvious.
2
@Gary F.S.
Exactly. Hasn't anyone else read Susan Sontag? Any type of images is manipulable, whether on purpose or unconsciously. Any image has a context. No image is "truth" and never has been.
3
Why is it even necessary to ask whether Shawn Brooks should be exposed? Of course he should be! He is a freelance liar and propagandist and as such he is attacking the foundation of our country and political system. As technology becomes more and more sophisticated, it will be harder and harder for our population to defend itself against malfeasance of all sorts. Exposing the bad guys for what they are is the least we should expect and do.
5
According to The Telegraph, a Samsung lab in Russia is light years ahead of this article. Check this YouTube video of the Mona Lisa speaking to "the camera"--and expressing three completely different "personalities" as she "speaks." (No clue as to what she is saying, but clearly it could be anything at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2uZF-5F1wI
The Brave New World of 1984 is the here and now...
1
Of only the entire Trump administration has been a deepfake video...
1
I agree wholeheartedly. I’m a journalist and was surprised that some other journalists didn’t think identifying the creator of a fake video about one of the most powerful politicians in the world was important. It’s incredibly important — knowing that it was a random nobody Trump supporter gives context (and extremely surprising context) to what was already an important story.
4
Regardless of the fake's source, when condoned by our leadership these fakes take on a whole new meaning.
Misuse of technology is just one example exposing how immoral that leadership has become.
It's the symptom not the problem.
Improve the leadership to solve many of these problems.
Vote 2020 - for morals.
3
I've seen and heard discussions about this new technology...scary stuff if ever freely availble which is usually what happens. And it's hard t keep the software genie in the bottle once it's found out.
Sadly, everwhere among us are so many unscrupulous people who have no ethical problem telling lies and ruining lives for sport.
So we dont know if what we see and hear is real or fake and we dont know where all the money comes from that creates and supports it. We seek clarity from the used to be reliable news channels and news'papers' and find they too are less than completely objective to varying degrees in varying directions. We turn to our 'friends' on social media and find a plethora of misinformation, much of it reposted in our own circles. It is no wonder that we have become angry armed camps distrusting one anothers 'alternate' facts, alternate cultures and conclusions. The center, the middle ground is lost to the extremeism of distrust and fear. Instead of leading us out of this wilderness our politicians of all stripes are desperately trying to exploit the hatred to carve out power and prestige for their own personal advantage. That is what politics has become. That is what we have become.
1
Well isn’t this all wonderful. Soon it will be impossible to tell fact from fiction. Everyone will soon need to be a subject matter expert in everything. And with most peoples 30 second attention span, that’s gonna be difficult. What’s next? A do it yourself kit to create perfect fake DNA so criminals can plant fake evidence?
I just started reading "Fall; or Dodge in Hell" by Neal Stephenson. One of the major events in the beginning of the book is a deepfake announcement of a nuclear attack on an American city. The book goes on to explore some of the chaos that results when you can no longer distinguish which reports are real. People gravitate toward the ones that fit their beliefs. It's easy, and scary, to see how close we are to that possibility.
Slanted reporting by major media only compounds the challenge. All news purveyors, including the NYT, should take a long look in the mirror.
2
..which brings us back to the concept of signature. By writing my name under something, a statement, a contract or a promise to pay, I put my credibility on the line, which needs to be earned over time, if not generations.
Soon this concept will makes it's way into digital media, voice, video and text. It it is not signed, it's worthless. This concept has been around for quite some time.
Make that a high school class: How to make it through the bewitched forest of digital media, full of ghosts, trolls and other fantasy creatures.
2
@Tom I agree 100%. Anonymity should be the exception, not the rule, and only in extreme cases. Other than that, only censorship will help, and no one wants that.
Images have been used to influence, manipulate, propagandize and distort for thousands of years. Take most artwork from the Renaissance for example. It's effective. Where else would people have gotten the idea that Christ was white? Moving images have been doing this at least since "Birth of a Nation" or "Battleship Potemkin". Images are tools and they can also can be used to reveal truths, maybe this is where Art lives, though these "truths" are always the product to the producer's subjectivity. Perception and objective truth are often completely different things at odds with each other. People need to keep this in mind when processing any kind of information. Even my comment here.
1
Excellent article. I agree that we must be vigilant and learn that we cannot trust all that we see and hear in this technological age. Reading the Mueller report, the vast amount of tweets and other false information the Russians perpetrated on us sends shivers down my spine. I fear we will endure worse throughout the coming campaign.
All the more reason to impeach Trump and perhaps be able to remove him - if the Senate gets a spine.
"The video was made by a private citizen named Shawn Brooks, who seems to have been a freelance political operative producing a wealth of pro-Trump web content." Being freelance does not make you an amateur--a characterization of Brooks later in the article. He is posting items he knows are false. He defames people when he does that. Character assassination is NOT a victimless crime.
7
A democracy cannot withstand what I fear is coming: a constant deluge of fake videos tweeted, retweeted and set in stone.
First we had Sean Spicer's 'the biggest inaugural crowd ever" then Kellyanne Conway's 'alternative facts', then Giuliani's 'the truth is not the truth' then Speaker Pelosi's 'drunk' video, retweeted by the administration. With deep fakes, I fear it will greatly contribute to not knowing what our shared reality is 'Everybody pick a reality and now vote!'.
We must have truth. If we don't have truth, we have nothing. That is why I am greatly concerned about Trump. Everything out of his mouth is a lie. How can anyone trust a liar? For that alone he should be impeached. How can voters and world leaders alike trust him when he consistently lies every single day, every time he opens his mouth or tweets? He has (supposedly) 60 million followers who will believe anything he said, that think he's the most honest president ever, who 'tells it like it is'! With his attacks on our media, with his admonition 'don't believe your eyes or ears', how can we expect anything positive - ever?
It's all making me nuts. And I truly fear for our future. We must have truth or we have nothing.
5
Who ya gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?
An excellent and timely article. To be responsible citizens in a world of modern technology that is accessible to almost anyone, we are going to have to be constantly on the alert for "deep fakes" in whatever form they take.
Now we need to ask what we do when major corporate media, I am talking to you FOX, start producing and broadcasting fictional video as fact. Will this finally cross the line of their constitutional protections or will this still be covered by the first amendment?
These possibilities are terrifying. If as a nation, as a world, we do not have a common reality to hold us together, an agreed upon set of objective facts and information that we base everything else on, how will we ever retain an orderly society?
This isn't a new phenomenon, just a new iteration of technology. For example, long before Photoshop, people were making fake pictures in darkrooms.
Long before the internet, people have been writing bunk books and newspaper articles.
Everyone needs to take what they see or read with a grain of salt, and think critically about everything. Too bad they barely teach that in schools.
2
Fakes and fakers should be exposed.
This vital task becomes infinitely more difficult by false negative reports - people calling fake news when it is not fake - when the attack "fake news" is actually the fake news. It diminishes the focus on and value of reporting real fakes.
Its a low point for our country when the biggest hypocrite hollering "Fake News" to attack the truth is our President. Truth and honesty obviously mean nothing to him - have no value. How can you trust a leader who cares so little about truth and morality - how can you support his policies knowing they come from a man who seems even to lie to himself, knows little, and plays golf instead of learning the facts.
"It’s good for journalists to start getting in the habit of tracking down creators of mysterious web content. And it’s good for the rest of us to start expecting as much from the media."
Expectations like journalists doing their jobs? Giving US news, and opinions?
We are in this state of the Union partly because journalists have forgotten to do their jobs. Their jobs were not to give the lies of McConnell the same weight as the truth from Obama; but that is what happened a lot more than it should have.
So get after it, folks. Do you jobs. Expose the frauds. Shine some light into the dark places and let us see truth.
1
So some people were upset that the originator of the fake video was exposed; they described it as "punching down". Good job finding the fraudster! How much damage did that fake do to the Speaker's credibility. There is harm caused by these fakes and their originators need to be exposed. You can easily imagine how this fakes can inspire violence! We better start considering laws that penalize these malicious act before it gets out of hand.
3
It is not the Deepfakes that are the problem. It is their viral dissemination on social media, especially Facebook that make them dangerous.
Ads are Facebook's biggest source of income. Facebook has become an anti-social goldmine. Facebook is now used to sow discord in foreign elections (eg., the US in 2016), create political chaos, and fuel religious wars around the globe. The recent Pelosi smearing is a an excellent example of Facebook's complete lack of morality. In addition, using social media like Twitter to attack legitimate news sources is now a huge part of Trump's Big Lie strategy. Trump has told 10,000 lies since taking office. Twitter is his ideal broadcast tower.
Social media, particularly the leader Facebook, have developed faster than the speed of light as a force in modern communication. In the face of the vast profits to be made, these companies, like the fossil fuel industry, will never be effective self-regulators. . Facebook will never truly control site content or abuse of personal information if it impacts their bottom line.
Silicon Valley once proudly touted Google's "Don't be Evil" motto. That is a thing of the past- it is now all about share price. This means there must be powerful legislation in the US and around the globe to regulate these unscrupulous social media giants.
Billions of unaware users are nothing but raw material for the Facebook/Twitter/Inststagram money printing operations. Regulate therm!!
1
When social media distribute a parody that the average viewer would not be to discriminate from an actual slander or libel, then it is the responsibility of the target (Pelosi) to assert her rights to recover damages to her reputation or income potential as a result of that lie.
Pelosi would not be able to establish that this is a slander/libel, nor to demonstrate the population that has long held her in general contempt has been expanded by it, nor to document a reduction of her earning potential as a result. There is no damage here ... except to the reputations of foolish people who believe they saw her drunk on TV.
There is no difference between Jerry Falwell's frivolous claim that he was damaged by Hustler Magazine's disgusting claims about his Oedipal sexual practices, and this silly video. Dr. Rini's claim that "we need to be prepared" sounds a bit like "the sky is falling".
"So far, this technology doesn’t seem to have been used in American politics,"
What makes you think that it hasn't?
2
Deep fakes have been around since the invention of the copy machine.
2
@Ann
More like since the era of illuminated manuscripts. Or marks chiseled in stone.
1
If you thought that Russian and Republican tampering with the 2016 election was something (and even if you didn't), buckle up!
Between the WH and TrumpTV there are more lies already polluting our lives than ever before. Trump would not hesitate one second to do ANYTHING to "win", and Deepfakes are certainly in his wheelhouse. He'll reTweet them, broadcast them, congratulate Hannity and Ingraham for bringing them to his base's attention and otherwise lie and cheat his way into defeat, but still with a huge price for all Americans.
By destroying the credibility of our institutions (a feat Trump has already been markedly successful at along with Barr, Sanders, Mnuchin and Miller) he casts doubt upon unquestionable truth for those who are not aware enough or questioning (you know who you are).
Beware Fox and Trump's other propagandists - they lie, and this is just a more sophisticated form of doing so. At least the Russians are smart enough to translate into English, a language with which Trump struggles every day.
1
As damaging, if not more, will be the ability to credibly claim that an accurate video is fake, to plausibly deny the truth of damning, absolutely faithfully recorded events. But who would do such a thing?
1
@Fritz Read
True. When the phrase "fake news" first came into parlance, Trump saw instantaneously that he could turn it against his enemies and claim true things were fake. All part of the same mentality.
When the first motion picture, of a train approaching a station, was shown, some people ran screaming, fearing they were about to be run down. Once it was understood that this was just an image, the same people didn't run out in front of actual trains, thinking they were as harmless as the projected image. If people want to, they can exercise judgment and deploy cautious skepticism -- when they want to. If they want to.
2
When could we ever blithely trust any claims made by perfect strangers? It doesn’t matter if it’s an image or a video or a claim in a newspaper or written by a scribe on a clay tablet in ancient Mesopotamia. There is nothing new about being presented with fake material masquerading as the truth.
What is new and really dangerous is the desire so many have to insist that some third party - Google, Facebook, or the government insure that we are presented with only “true” material. Add to that the internet’s capability of centralizing the control of the content we see, and we are facing a genuine threat to our liberties.
What we are witnessing is the Academy’s “safe spaces” being extended to our whole lives. We used to call this censorship and we thought it was bad. Now so many are demanding it.
2
@Johnny Stark I don't support censorship, but I do support mandatory identification of creators when posting to social media. That would curb the nefarious effects of digital manipulation.
@GP Your's is an odd idea given that you don't personally implement "mandatory identification of creators" by giving us your true identity, and not just GP from Oakland.
1
@GP
Why this talk about "csnsorship"? It isn't censorship when somebody is punished for libel.
1
There used to be three categories of untruth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I suppose now Deepfakes need be added to that list.
1
Way back in 1940, sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein wrote a story not only predicting television and televangelists, but describes how they used film tricks to fake miracles to deceive "the faithful". 80 years ago. And people still haven't wised up.
2
If you post something on a public forum, you waive the right to privacy as it regards the thing you posted. If is clearly, deliberately false, and especially if it enters the national dialogue, you deserve to be "outed" for it's falsity.
2
Gee, I wonder which party will use them in an underhanded manner...
1
"the Daily Beast was wrong to expose Mr. Brooks. After all, they argued, he’s only one person, not a Russian secret agent or a powerful public relations firm; and it feels like “punching down” for a major news organization to turn the spotlight on one rogue amateur."
Does that mean, by extension, that news organizations should not report crimes committed by individuals, on the theory that individuals are unimportant?
3
No one ever signs their name to what they write on the toilet stall wall.
4
We don't, fortunately, allow anonymous testimony in courts of law, nor should we trust anonymous testimony in the court of public opinion.
2
What if the content is real and of social value, but identifying the source places the producer of the content in danger? Knowing the source is not necessarily socially the best option.
@sds I think creators of all media content should be identified when publishing on social media. Just like authors, sculptors, cinematographers, chefs, real estate agents, journalists, city council members, and so many more. Anonymity should be the exception rather than the rule, as it is now.
3
where the fake news comes.. is the least important. we need to know.. the method, tools & financing... that makes go the viral
that is the Key.. to be innovative in the field of #FakeNews industry.. requires little resources.. fanning them.. is the key
2
Anyone can be fooled into believing something is real. We hear of scams everyday in the (real)news. Critical thinking is a learned skill that I feel many of us lack or too lazy to execute. That is the real problem!
3
Stewart Brand published an essay in 1985 entitled "The End of Photography as Evidence of Anything." It looks as though he was correct. Once an image (or recording, or video) is reduced to ones and zeros, it can be infinitely manipulated. This was startling in 1985, old news now.
A mandatory digital watermark that identified creators of internet content would curb this nefarious problem without censorship.
3
We have a generation now that listens with its eyes, and thinks with its feelings. The Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, etc. know this and will exploit this capability along with mere text. Digital is a very cost effective way to attack America. Americans doing this fakery are even more reprehensible. As one Eastern European citizen said to a pundit, “The Russians don’t need us to trust them, what they want is for us to distrust each other.” When the President and his minions pick up on this stuff and retweet, we’re in a very bad place.
6
Digital media exploded into a powerful propaganda tool that can br used to spread lies and hatred. The massive social media corporations that make billions exploiting its users need to be regulated.The creators posters of these lies and hate-provoking communications need to be exposed and punished. Freedom of speech is not the freedom to bring harm to others through lies and malicious disinformation.
4
I agree that deep fakes will be a major problem in the coming years, but I find it ironic that an article warning us about being manipulated by the media has such a scaremongering headline.
1
Researchers are hard at work to detect these fakes. They're not impossible to defeat.
Back in the early 90s I took a class at the U of Washington in Photoshop. As primitive as it was in those days it was amazing what one could do with a little patience and persistence. Now it is really easy to slice and dice and combine photos. I don't do videos, but I can believe that anyone can with practice. After all, look what people were able to accomplish with slicing and dicing film is the old days!
1
Photoshop? You could do it in the darkroom with ruby lith (but it took more skill). And before the advent of photography you could draw illustrations of anything you wanted. And people often did. Wake up folks. It’s not the fault of this generation. It’s not the fault of social media. It’s human nature. Know thyself.
Robert Bly's translation of Kabir's poetry (14th century Sufi) included a line I've remembered over the years: approx "If you haven't experienced something, it isn't true." A key word is "experienced" as opposed to hearsay. As we recklessly embrace a culture of images including those produced anonymously, we endanger ourselves. Skepticism is healthy and cynicism is poison, and too many people don't know the difference.
I have a family member who "went down the rabbit hole" of embracing fake news / conspiracies e.g. the earth isn't necessarily round, moon landing not necessarily real, etc....despite being in a TAG program in elementary school. Why? Anti-authority fanaticism and wanting to be powerful while not actually engaging in the professional/scientific world; creativity is more important than knowledge and the constraints of using a scientific method or even common sense. What fun!
1
'Robert Bly's translation of Kabir's poetry (14th century Sufi) included a line I've remembered over the years: approx "If you haven't experienced something, it isn't true."'
The exact quote is:
"If you have not lived through something, it is not true."*
That's either incoherent or false.
Incoherent, because truth or falsity is not a property of "living".
False, because no one has "lived through" death.
* "Kabir: Ecstatic Poems" by Kabir, translated by Robert Bly.
2
That's why death is such mystery, and what waits us after is such a subject for speculations.
We're already living in a place where shaming ensues when one points out, perfectly reasonably, that wanting to be of the opposite sex and having disfiguring surgery to make you look like the opposite sex, does not in fact make one the opposite sex. Distortion of reality is becoming the norm more every day, and young adults as a group, with their inherent ability to be influenced by their peers, are prime targets of deception as they carry the world into the future. Let's hope they've developed enough skepticism to make the important distinctions.
5
People have all kinds of enhancement surgery. I don’t think any of them would consider it disfiguring. And where do you draw the line? Are braces on your teeth some kind of refusal to accept reality? Is coloring your hair? Or your lips? Or your toenails? This kind of thing is as old as the human race and with advances in technology it is only going to become more extensive. It’s certainly not going to go away.
3
@Susan I wouldn't equate those procedures with paying somebody a great deal of money to carve up one's sexual organs to resemble those of the opposite sex, or to prescribe hormones that mimic or are bio identical to those of the opposite sex's, the long-term effects of which could be very harmful.
1
@ Ferm,
It’s a continuum, not a black and white distinction. As technology makes more and more radical transformations possible there is always going to be resistance. How about paying somebody a lot of money to remove the majority of your stomach? Extreme? Perhaps. But it transforms lives. So does gender reassignment surgery. Who am I to make allowances for one and not the other?
1
“Some commenters quickly suggested that the Daily Beast was wrong to expose Mr. Brooks.”
And, there in a nutshell is the problem.
Anything is okay if it helps a member of my tribe or hurts a member of the other tribe.
Too bad so many conservatives and liberals who know better appear to no longer care.
4
Maybe the Luddites were onto something.
6
If seeing is no longer believing, and neither is hearing, then the dysfunctional political system called "Democracy based on universal suffrage" is really doomed.
Skepticism is already rampant without deepfakes. They will further erode voter participation and cause deep polarization of the uninformed citizens.
The only solution for such a political system is a well educated and discerning population with keen critical thinking. It's a fantasy. Most voters are really stupid. Facts mean nothing to people. Look at the evidence: from UK, USA, Ukraine, Turkey, Philippines to Australia.
6
What do we do when "deepfakes" and promoted and encouraged by news organizations? Fox News and extremes on both ends of the spectrum are currently conduits for this type of disinformation.
2
"It will soon be as easy to produce convincing fake video as it is to lie."
I think the first time we were all subjected to a "fake video" on a grand scale was when the famous Bin Laden tape - in which he was "talking" about his role on 9/11 attack in a ceremonial setting - was made public. I am not sure who (which country or which national security agency) was behind that video but, given that Bin Laden had no intention to appear in front of a court of law anywhere, someone was in a hurry to prove his guilt to set the stage for what was justifiably coming to him. Of course, later on the video was analyzed and it became clear that much of it was made up.
Not too long ago, we learned that the WannaCry ransomware was actually developed by the United States National Security Agency (please see 1) and somehow ended up in the wrong hands. That said, one has wonder whether the software facilitating production of fake videos is also another case of an advanced technology made by government agencies falling in the wrong hands.
1. wikipedia.org/wiki/WannaCry_ransomware_attack
With the availability of side spread distribution through social media it is essential that those producing fake video and pictures be held accountable, and not just if they are "Russian" agents or PR firms.
Faking videos and pics is a far more sinister activity than coloring a story or offering an editorial opinion.
While an experienced digital editor can spot fake products, most of us can not. The legitimate media should expose , by name, those responsible
4
consider: a future Turing test will be the video/movie where you cannot tell who the real (human) actors are and who are CGI. is it a real set or just a graphics image. what havoc will that unleash on our political discourse and news media?
This is another reason that I strongly prefer to have my news filtered, vetted, curated perhaps but always seen and judged by major media pros before sending its distillation on to me
2
It is only fair. It is funny to see the people who have held a monopoly on propaganda and media manipulation for so long panicking though.
Oh you reap what you sow. Why was it that so many of the photos during the European migrant crisis were of women and children?????
This is our revenge.
1
So why are you all still on youtube, and facebook, get off. After the initial 21 days of with-drawl it gets waaaayyyy better. Call your friends, send them personal pics, email a letter. Guess what your friends actually talk to you more. I know I've did the above.
3
Never underestimate the gullibility of the masses.
2
I think we've only started to see what a problem this will be. First, I think "seeing is believing" operates at an instinctual level--it's bone deep. After a person views a false video, the impression of its apparent truth remains embedded in the viewer's brain. My guess is people seeing the faked drunken Nancy Pelosi will continue to think of her as drunk.
Second problem has, I think, huge implications for the mental health of vulnerable sections of our populace, especially the younger digital generations. This article says "Most of the time, you could trust that a camera captured roughly what you would have seen with your own eyes. So if you trust your own perception, you have nearly as much reason to trust the video."
IF you trust your own perception. Think of The Matrix and how popular it was. Or the tv show Mr Robot. The whole thesis was: *don't* trust your eyes, or your beliefs as to what is reality. Because there's a deeper, utterly sinister reality going on. You just think you're walking through a real world, when instead you're chained to a bed somewhere, with your vital essences being drained to feed machines. (Or whatever The Matrix's story said; I never watched it very carefully.) This is not only a terrifying thought; it's seductive, inviting you to become one of the *woke* who sees the real reality.
If you buy into this. You're down the rabbit hole. This is the entry to mental illness.
3
Deep fakes now give serial liars like Trump cover. He will surely claims deep fake whenever it serves him. He already makes claims contrary to reality. Deep fakes will require those of us seeking truth to hold the possibility that a video is not true. I imagine some of the worst cases will be as his cognitive function continues to decline and those around him can't afford to lose the power of his shield.
2
"Digital technology is making it much easier to fabricate convincing fakes......So far, this technology doesn’t seem to have been used in American politics,"
There's an oversight that the Russo-Republicons will correct.
You ALREADY know what you need to know.
VOTE 2020.
1
@AWENSHOK
Jimmy Kimmel has been airing clips similar to the altered Nancy Pelosi video for a couple of years now, done the same way (by slowing down the speech) and for the same effect. His versions are very much enjoyed by his studio audience and TV viewership because they feature "Drunk Donald Trump". (And there is no disclaimer that The Donald doesn't drink).
2
@irene
Congrats!
Teh Daily Award for What-Aboutism is YOURS!
Social media companies should be required to label altered content as such as soon as it is discovered to have been altered or faked.
2
The problem is that the libel and slander laws in this country have not kept up with the Times (so, to speak). If the originator of fake information about a private citizen (take a child being bullied) or a public person (take Pelosi) has nothing to lose there's going to be nothing to stop them.
We know from this article that the social media companies have the resources to identify the originators of false information, they should be required to do so and to turn the information over to an appropriate law enforcement agency.
Once a criminal verdict has been rendered as guilty in the criminal courts, the target of the information (victim of you will) should have the ability to go into the civil legal system for adequate compensation.
Those that resend or re-post false information should loose their access to all social media for some period of time. Civil damages in the re-post environment should be allowed for both the platform and the victim.
Now, before the libertarians among you grab your pitch forks and storm my castle let me explain that the laws need to be drawn very narrowly and the bar should be set high enough that it can not be used to punish petty mistakes and retribution.
In other words, the definition of libel and slander needs to be so clear that there is no possible sidestepping by the courts as in Jacobellis v. Ohio 1964 where Judge Stewart said "I can't define pornography but when I see it I can recognize it".
1
The fact that it is necessary to express the obvious (the source of knowledge is an integral part of it) shows how deep the culture of lies has penetrated into our lives. It is necessary to emphasize that the message of this article is obvious. The alleged Freedom fighters of the press, who oppose publication of the identity of the source, weaken the most important element of communication: a clear demarcation between truth and lies, especially in politics. They strengthen the propagators of lies and manipulations. Michael Karpin is the author of "The bomb in the Basement - How Israel Went Nuclear and What That Means to the World". It was published by Simon & Schuster.
2
Deepfakes should be illegal and punishable with mandatory jail time.
5
Actually, it is ideal to have amateur political operatives exposed to the ire of the internet.
They deserve all the ire and shame. Their choice to make the video.
4
What s rich vein for Putin and his ilk to exploit!
2
Good for the Daily Beast. Of course this guy should have been exposed as should anyone attempting to lie in print or on video. It is a shame that we can no longer believe what we hear and see, but that seems to be true.
4
Won't it help to go to the subject of the video and confirm the particulars of the event that was supposedly originally video'd? So was there an actual event verifiable from various news services or at least by the politician's own team? If THAT can't be proven, why would you believe any supposed video from that event when we don't know the event happened?
Don't journalists cross check? They will have to do this to learn what is fake and then report on that to help the general public.
If Mr. Brooks denied creating it, but was the first to upload it, isn't it possible it was handed to him to publish? The extent to which PR firms and foreign agents are burying the root of their viral content using current technology are under-estimated. Like the first diseminator of the PizzaGate disinformation, Mr. Brooks may be an unwitting tool of a sophisticated campaign. The "grass-roots" so often turn out to be "artificial turf" in the digital age.
"If Mr. Brooks denied creating it, but was the first to upload it, isn't it possible it was handed to him to publish?"
Or Brooks could have found the video in another forum. Either way, a professional philosopher should have realized that uploading does not imply creation. Those are distinct acts.
In the 20th century: scholars, scientists, critics, teachers, librarians, and others served as the gatekeepers of knowledge. In its own way it was restrictive and limiting, but it also served as a cultural check on ludicrous ideas and claims. In the 21st century, we have largely forsaken that model and replaced it with one that valorizes “star ratings” and “going viral” over any traditional measures of truth. Social media defined in the broadest possible way has driven an epistemic screw into the heart of America. Deepfakes are just the latest turn.
3
People should already be skeptical and should've been skeptical all along of what they see on the internet. That used to be common sense. It's plenty easy to fake videos and images without deepfake technology, people have been doctoring photographs for nearly as long as photographs have existed.
It's extremely easy to lie with a photograph just by cropping it, cutting the photo down to a smaller section of the original that removes important context. This simple method of manipulating information with photographs has been used throughout the 20th century, to say nothing of altering the contents of photos by deleting or adding things to them.
Similarly video manipulation is intrinsic to the entire practice of recording video, it's called editing. Editing is all about manipulating footage, but typically we think of it as benign or artistic. In reality, editing is information manipulation. Editors choose what people get to see, what order they see it in, and what, if any, audio they hear along with it. Editors can omit parts of video by cutting out frames, can reorder frames however they want, can add or delete audio tracks at will.
Unless you are watching raw, unedited video you are watching somebody's doctored version of the truth. Even if it was done with the best intentions, editing video is essentially information control.
3
@Joel
And even watching 'raw, unedited video' confines you to seeing what the videographer WANTED you to see, by choosing to film it in the first place. (Exceptions would be security cameras and dash and body cams but those are all fairly new and very limited in range).
1
For a considerable period of time I was a partner in charge of audits of of broker dealers in commodities futures, securities derivatives, and securities. It was a fast paced world that attracted ambitious amoral people and the stakes were high.
I learned to take any information given me as neither true or false, but as an "assertion". Who provided the information? How might that person gain if the information is false and I am deceived? Does the information square with other things I know? Can I devise a way I can test it?
It was just a shorthand version of the scientific method. In time I internalized the process. I was skeptical but not cynical. I think we all need to learn to think that way. (I stay away from social media because the information there is not vetted and I don't care to take the time to vet it.)
5
@Charles Tiege, good comment. However, recently I needed to peel a kiwi. I watched a couple of you tube posts and decided what version to try. Success! I needed to become familiar with the cantata my new choir was singing with a community orchestra. Watched and listened to a couple of different versions on you tube and learned a lot, and smiled a lot too. I could never have done either of these before you tube.
The root of the problem is anonymous speech. One possible way to clear this up is to require all public speech to be signed by an identifiable individual human being, which would obviously exclude corporations, committees and Russian bots.
3
Thomas Jefferson said that a democracy depended on a "well informed electorate". If we can no longer believe anything we see or hear, what's that leave us with?
3
@Entera
I don't doubt that Jefferson made that statement - but it sounds to me like he was a student of Plato who made that statement 2400 years ago in his, The Republic. No democracy has survived (that I know of) since. These humans, slow learners. Great post.
To me this means that is is more and more important to watch a live event, like the presidential debates, broadcast by mainstream outlets. Once something is relegated to the web it is untrustworthy.
2
This problem is compounded because millions of people are no longer getting their news and political information from credible sources and instead are relying on social media or the right wing media ecosystem. It is no longer Walter Cronkite or the local newspaper. Facebook is a particularly bad source because all news posts look pretty much the same. Perhaps Congress will need to pass laws to deal with this so that there are penalties for presenting altered political material without labeling. It is critical in a democracy that the public be able to have a reasonable opportunity to determine what is true. Otherwise there is no way to have democratic arguments based on facts and democracy will collapse.
3
If it's "not ideal to have amateur political operatives exposed to the ire of the internet" it's only because the internet can not punish such behavior severely enough.
This type of thing undermines democracy and the public trust, and gets people thinking that the only way to govern the country is through an autocrat who sees things their way.
3
There was a time when information was broadcast via the ‘grapevine’. After hearing said information there’s an attempt to establish veracity; it was usually “Who said that?”. A trusted source or a passing huckster? Should work the same today. The problem lies in the exponential growth of hucksters like the one occupying our White House.
all the more reason to pay attention to where the content comes from
1
Americans like to compare themselves to Abraham Lincoln (especially GOPers) and George Washington but in fact act much more like P.T. Barnum and Bernie Madoff.
There may even be something nostalgically American about lying and cheating simply to get rich (thus, admiration for Trump) but what is the motivation for all the lying about facts and reality - especially among those who will never sit in the seat of power. (Though with all the former FOX News people in the Trump administration maybe its not so far fetched.)
A couple of well-placed libel suits could put the brakes on the deep fakers. If you publish a lie about someone and it causes them harm, they can sue you and collect damages.
If the word gets out that doing this will land you in court, with the possibility of an expensive judgement against you, fewer people will be willing to do it.
In the case of Nancy Pelosi, it would be difficult to prove harm because her reputation is well established and she wasn't up for reelection. If something like this changes the result of an election it will be a different situation altogether. It would be legally interesting to see a politician sue a third party for causing them to lose an election by publishing a convincing lie.
@mlbex Maybe, but look how difficult it is proving to be stop Alex Jones with lawsuits, much less Donald Trump - who owns, or will soon own, the Supreme Court - or the Russian state intelligence, which is out of the reach of our courts anyway.
4
@XXX: I was just talking about the homegrown people like Shawn Brooks. This article points out the fact that the technology to make convincing fakes is getting cheaper and easier to use.
State actors, presidents, and wealthy individuals have access to professional studios, which can already make convincing fakes. Sure enough, they'd have to be handled differently.
That cat is so far out of the bag is cannot even be seen gamboling over the horizon.
Why does the article push this kind of thing into the future when that future is demonstrably here, and has been for a while?
Am I the only one who remember the infamous CNN "parking-lot-bus" scene?
It is not technology that makes fakery.
It is human perfidy.
But the "green screen" sure helped a lot.
So now the green screen is passe, and cgi is the new thing.
Same old song - lies in service to power.
You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war?
How's that whole poking-the-bear thing going?
Why are we being treated to reiterations (remembrances) of Tiananmen and Chernobyl?
NYT?
Buehler?
2
Digital fakery is a serious problem, no denying it - but the other side is the refusal of people to accept what is real if it contradicts what they want to believe. Confirmation bias meets Dunning-Kreuger.
You don’t need digital fakery to craft lies. Tell people what they want to hear. Craft lies so big that the listener doubts themself rather than the liar, and repeat repeat repeat...
Intimidate truth tellers; kill the messenger and threaten their families too. Punish whistle blowers. It has certainly worked on Democrats and the mainstream media.
The old saying about telling the truth and shaming the Devil only works if the devil has any sense of shame. There is none in Trump, the Republican Party, the conservative movement, or Fox News.
The magnitude of deliberate falsehood is overwhelming the traditional remedies. The adoption of ‘balanced’ reporting, one-hand-other-hand narratives, makes it possible for lies to survive and thrive and spread round the world at internet speeds.
They say a lie can go halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its boots - and that was before Twitter and FaceBook. They talk about truth so precious, it must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies - hence conservative media and talk radio.
Howard Beale died for our sins. Diogenes has been driven from the marketplace. The Unfairness Doctrine is the order of the day.
1
Wow! Are we flying this low now, as to wanting to believe in straight-out lies and fabricated videos, just for the fun of it? Still, it is hard to believe we, collectively, are losing our conscience (that knows right from wrong!) and want to believe conspiracy theories and straight out lies from devious individuals intent in creating chaos for ulterior motives. No sense of justice, nor decency, here? It reminds me of the interview of high school students; when asked if cheating on their exams was O.K., they said: "it's O.K., as long as you don't get caught". How shameful. If our society is willing to accept this garbage as normal, we are lost, and definitely deserve to be thrown away as thrash...or at least confined to the fringes. I understand that, having a superb liar and rabble-rouser like Donald J. Trump, at the helm, doesn't help one bit, but we ought to be better than that, transcend petty feelings of superiority and show some humility (if not repentance) for a change.
Even the GOP and it’s like would not stoop to this level. Oh, wait.
2
This seems to put things at a hopeless pass. It seems the majority of people are incapable of critical thinking, making them gullible to every sort of manipulation and too stubborn to admit being made fools of The more sophisticated these forms of manipulation become, the more difficult the remedy, if there is one.
3
Fake videos,are a particularly dangerous feature of the digital world.Trump with his daily lies and exaggerations has desensitized people to accuracy and they have come to accept speech that is inaccurate.It is easier to acquiesce than to dig for the truth.People,watch You Tube videos by the hour,mainly for entertainment.This is a perfect platform for fake videos-no one will even care enough to check out the truth.The Trump administration has no regard for the truth-fake videos make their efforts even easier.
2
I'm puzzled as to why there is any controversy at all surrounding the ethics of revealing the identity of the alleged creator of the Pelosi video, Shawn Brooks. A video of the Speaker of The House of Representatives appears on the web in which she has been made to appear drunk, high, or otherwise impaired. This alone is newsworthy. When the media then determines the video to be doctored, the next logical question is by whom and why. The answers to these questions are also legitimately newsworthy. The fact that Shawn Brooks is currently not thought to be a state actor is entirely irrelevant to revealing the fraud.
7
I can take solace and comfort in the fact the Democrats don't partake in this despicable practice.
1
@skanda - "Democrats don't partake in this despicable practice."
When the material is supplied there is no need to make it up.
They only need to point a camera at the President and almost any member of the administration and reality is worse than any fiction they could create. Trump will deny what he said right to the camera.
And all they had to do was to bring a camera to a Trump rally and video the happenings there. In fact they did. Of course Trump claimed what was shown happening was fake news.
1
@skanda dems don't need to make stuff like this up to make the GOP look sinister and silly at the same time. The corker was the tea party member of the GOP during the ACA debates furiously screaming at America "don't let the government get their hands on MY medicare." Ted Cruz really did read a doctor suess book on the senate floor. DJT really does say things like "sources tell me the queen had the best time with me she has had in 65 years." trump's cult members really did believe that Hillary was operating a porn ring from a DC pizza joint. It goes on and on.
3
@skanda
Check out any of Jimmy Kimmel's numerous 'Drunk Donald Trump' clips. Same thing, but nobody cares
because they are funny and it's fine to bash The Donald.
3
Watch/re-watch the 1981 movie "Looker". A bit prescient?
I went to a Bookstore where the recently published Books with Political themes were grouped together. Many were by authors who's names I knew but there were some I was not familiar with. Turns out after some research...many of the books written by author's I had never heard of were conspiracy theorists basically writing fictitious propaganda! A search of some of the familiar titles to the books I had seen on Amazon revealed many more likes and positive reviews by readers of the books by conspiracy theorists than the more well known authors... some with many years in Gov't and public service. Those reading the fiction do vote and I wonder.. are they educating themselves and buying these books in greater numbers because the rest of us are not buying as many books by authors we trust and respect? Either way...after the last few years of Trump's dysfunctional chaotic Presidency and Administration...with all the hirings ,firings, resignations,indictments,and convictions. With the Access Hollywood tape, Cohen's testimony and the Mueller Report ..if we can't separate fact from fiction at this point..well it's too late for too many of us. Perhaps it's not true that there is a sucker born every minute.Can it may be ...they are born every second ?? America...YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO... SEPARATE THE FACT FROM FICTION...VOTE !!!
There is always the possibility of deep fake video showing President Trump, surrounded by shocked secret service agents, shooting a jaywalker on 5th Avenue. Who would believe it? Would anybody even care?
You may not know this but shooting people is not a federal crime. It’s a state crime. And if Trump actually did try to pull this off in New York he’d be in handcuffs in a nanosecond. Not sure about Alabama though.
Liars who promote lies using platforms which disseminate to the entire world and massive audiences should be exposed, no matter how small a person the liar is, when the harm they achieve is so great it can bring down an entire republic/democracy. In this case, helping move the USA from a republic to a dictatorship is no small matter. The USA and its democratic values is the center of the world’s stability. If a person wants to keep their lies private and not share them with the entire world, then the liar should not be exposed to the entire world but only among the circle of friends at the circle’s discretion.
We need truth. Truth must be rewarded and lies and liars must not.
Deep fakes remind me of Descartes's evil demon hypothesis or Baudrillard's simulacra. What is it with the French, anyway?
Easy peasy. I will stick to reputable news organizations like the NYT, WaPo & others for my news content. The rest is just YouTube funnies. I wont be tricked.
2
Donald Trump as president - I can no longer believe what I see.
Unfortunately, the people who are most gullible for fake news are not reading this opinion piece or the NY Times. They are reading Fox news which will be at the forefront of fake news.
Our uneducated public, our uneducated fellow citizens, are ripe tp be taken advantage of, witness Liar In Chief. And they adore him and his lies.
4
The U.S government, the Pentagon and our intelligence agencies have been producing Deepfakes for decades, many of which utilized photo and video "evidence". How much more sophisticated and successful can it get than what was done in the run up to war with Iraq? The mainstream news media has enthusiastically and uncritically participated in the selling of those Deepfakes. That is what needs to change. The problem is, accountability is incompatible with the business model of the social media giants and traditional news media outlets are controlled by corporate interests who are desperately chasing hits on a keyboard and twitter feeds and have decided they can't afford to be responsible.
3
One of my mentor teachers once said his main goal was to make sure that his students "could tell a good argument from rot." This seems like it is still good advice. However, the difficulty is that the argument no longer stands on its own merit. Every argument must be "sourced" as the author suggests.
For example, I was once sent a link to a video from a climate change denier from someone I respect. I immediately checked the source. The source was thoroughly subsidized by the oil and gas industry. I responded that I hadn't watched it, but had looked at the source and found the oil and gas connection. Therefore, I was skeptical to believe anything in it, preferring to stick to peer-reviewed papers that are not written for profit. I was asked to "just watch it", so I did. It was very convincing. It was also full of lies and half-truths that I later confirmed with independent research.
As a teacher of high school students, I continually harp on the source of everything they cite. Who is this? Why are they writing it? Who pays them? Once we do this exercise a number of times a pretty clear patterns emerge. Much of what we read is not written to gain truth but written for an ideological purpose.
I have come to believe that "sourcing" is the central skill we need to teach our children in the digital age. It's not very time consuming and sheds light on arguments that sound good but are lacking in factual basis.
4
@Bandos
Be careful what you wish for. Unless you sincerely believe only you are correct and everyone who disagrees with you is misinformed or deluded, then you have to acknowledge the fact that people form different beliefs based on different sources of reliable information which they prioritize over other sources of reliable information based on their moral leanings. This is how ideologies form.
What this means is that if you actually give children intellectual freedom to question information, they might not end up sharing your view points. Indeed this already happens all the time. Children raised by parents encounter alternative viewpoints in school, creating a conflict between authoritative sources of information in the child's world, forcing them to choose either their parents or their teachers as the new gospel they follow. By encouraging children to think for themselves and critically examine all information, you are removing the ability for these authority figures to influence the child's ideology.
It sounds good in theory, until they grow up to disagree with you and vote for candidates you hate.
Maybe we need to teach people common sense and how not to be gullible. Maybe we also need to teach people how to think and read and that they shouldn't depend on internet websites for "news" that aren't actually news websites. Maybe we just need to stop being stupid.
1
One used to say, "believe nothing of what you hear and only half what you read". We'll now add, "and only a portion of what you see".
Several months ago a another customer in a drug store came up to me and announced that Kate Middleton was going to have identical twin girls, such news having appeared in a favorite tabloid. When I asked some of the obvious logical questions - was the news announced by the Palace, was there verification in other papers or the media - she became indignant. A friend of hers arrived to whom she announced the same unverified news.
The point is that people believe what they want to believe, or have been conditioned to believe, no more, no less. Facts will not change their stance, nor will demasking tinkered videos as has been done here. As Chico Marx said: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
1
Consumers need to be less ready to share content without verifying it. And that takes diligence and a good grounding in reality to do so. Instead people jump on anything that supports their political POV, and give up their integrity in doing so. Nancy Pelosi is a very controlled politician—where in any situation would one see her drunk and in front of a camera? But those whose are willing to push false stories in order to bolster their “side” willingly pedal this stuff.
209
Coming from the old photography world ....
Photographs were retouched (altered). Most people could not detect these alterations but people trained in this art could always detect the alteration. This is also the case in the fine art world.
I am hoping something similar will happen with video fakes.
3
It isn’t just perception vs testimony. Those who spend lots of time online, but who could be a little more critical of things (like my grandparents), trust information when it comes from trusted sources. The articles worth sharing come from Good, Trustworthy people. Misleading information spreads like crazy in a network of those that are trusting but less-than-critical.
Maybe if people are shown faked videos and AI-generated articles early they’d be scared into being more critical. I don’t know. But how do you do it? Think of how fast the term ‘fake news’ was appropriated.
It doesn't surprise me that the Washington Examiner would be critical of the Daily Beast for exposing the author of this fake video. These efforts almost exclusively are to benefit Donald Trump and conservatives. If a liberal gets caught doing this, the Examinier would be howling about fake news.
1
Just as unsettling - someone like Trump could declare that a real video of him doing/saying something is a deep fake and should be ignored. One statement like that, even if proven false later, could get a crooked politician through a crisis long enough for media attention to subside.
And there would be a % of people that would *never believe it was real no matter how much evidence existed, because their hero demagogue said so.
2
Criminal justice laws need to be reworked so that people like Shawn Brooks face serious punishment for trying to undermine democracy. And yes make it a capital crime.
1
None of this would have happened without the gamification of social media. When Google or Facebook or YouTube's AI's only imperative is to keep people on the sites, we are going to continue to watch our democracy disintegrate.
What I'd like to see is Facebook and Twitter shut down completely. That's not going to happen, so, at the very least, social media sites should limit sharing drastically, eliminate likes, and do whatever it takes to limit virality.
That's not an unreasonable request, even if it's never going to happen.
Ms. Rini is just too hopeful here. People believe the stupidest things because that's one of the wonderful things about people. If I had cancer, I'd believe that I was going to get better despite all evidence to the contrary. I plan for a future retirement that I can't see despite the likelihood that it very well might not happen. We believe in God because we want live to have meaning, despite there being no evidence at all that God exists, and lots of evidence to the contrary. We do stupid things that we probably would never have thought we were capable of because of our desire to belong.
For Ms. Rini to say, blandly, what we ought to do individually—that's fine. It's just not going to happen. You just can't unsee things. Even if you know something is not true, it won't be hard to believe it or to have affect your opinions. Surely social media can find a way to identify deepfakes with all their brainpower. Otherwise, they ought to shut down.
1
What about algorythms positing false authorship convincingly?
Bye, democracy. We will miss you.
2
The deep fakes are already here. Have you seen who occupies the White House?
2
To quote the famous philosopher Groucho Marx, "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"
I was with you until you called the Daily Beast a major news organization. Not sure who measures these things but personally no.
An institution doxxing someone for what could be argued to be a mockery as much as a ‘fake’ is still bad though and feels very Soviet to me.
Samantha Bee did a eye-opening segment on this topic as part of her "Not the Correspondents' Dinner" program. It showed how sophisticated face-swapping technology has become--that you can easily take the image of anybody and have the "person" speak any words you choose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIZf7eRlD4w
There are still people out there who think the real Pelosi video is the doctored one. Some of them are college educated.
Truth died in 2017.
1
Deep fakes are here, and have been for a long time. Russians hacked and influenced our election is one, and the Iraqis have weapons of mass destruction is another. Wake up and smell the coffee
Funny,
Trump does not need anything but a TV camera pointed at him to create a fake video.
Fake Hair.
Fake accomplishments.
Fake claims.
All recorded live and sent out to the world by the mainstream media.
1
Going a step further, if video can no longer be regarded as accurate, liars like Donald Trump will be able to cast even more doubt on the very real things that they've done and said. Trump already insists that things he's caught on tape doing didn't happen. How much more potent will those lies be when this technology becomes ubiquitous?
3
The solution is to regulate. Create clear standards for media and news (which will have to include Facebook, Google, etc.). No more letting tech companies getting away with lame excuses that they are just a "platform". Worst case, they will split into news / media companies that play by the rules and platform companies where anything goes. At least we will know where stuff comes from, and the few trustworthy sources will become the standard. We will never be able to avoid fakes, but we can ignore them if they come from the unregulated side of the news business.
Comments are monitored for more than 'civility'. So much of what we read or view these days is 'selective'. Lying or being fake is a more complicated game that really involves managing 'what' the discussion is about as much as 'how' it is being presented.
1
"Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see." - Edgar Allan Poe, 1845.
People have been conned since the beginning of time - in this country, from snake-oil salesmen through Madoff to the present occupier of the White House.
The only defense is a healthy skepticism and a willingness to buck the consensus of the mob.
Our children must be taught to think for themselves from the earliest age possible.
300
@RexNYC
"Our children must be taught to think for themselves from the earliest age possible."
i'm sure betsy de vos will take care of that...
40
@RexNYC And thinking for themselves should be part of the entire educational program in every public school and should begin in kindergarten. Hopefully, more highly educated parents will learn to reinforce critical thinking at home for their children and their children's friends.
22
@RexNYC Problem: thinking is hard, while thoughtless following is easy.
19
The overall decline in education, which I believe exists, must be reversed. There is really no practical alternative to an educated public. The more knowledge each individual has, the greater are the capabilities to detect and shun fakery. For special interests, a public educated in a way that is fair to classical principles of honesty poses a serious threat. We must make special interests stand on their own in a fair and open forum. This will not happen in a world that chooses to remain polarized.
Others have also recognized that it will be very difficult to stop the deepfakes: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-12-11/deepfakes-and-new-disinformation-war ("Deepfakes and the New Disinformation War," Jan/Feb 2019, by Chesney and Citron).
Both audio and video clips can be faked, and the technology may be available to anyone with a laptop (or even a phone?) and an internet connection. Authors of the above essay note: "...as deepfake technology develops and spreads, the current disinformation wars may soon look like the propaganda equivalent of the era of swords and shields." Doctored photos of the past will indeed seem crude instruments.
Some of these fakes can be used for teaching purposes, to enhance history, to show people figures from our past. That is not so much a concern (but those historical images could also be manipulated). Also from the above essay:
"But deepfakes can and will be used for darker purposes, as well. Users have already employed deepfake technology to insert people’s faces into pornography without their consent or knowledge, and the growing ease of making fake audio and video content will create ample opportunities for blackmail, intimidation, and sabotage."
The world's representational democracies will have to find a balance between total cynicism and blind acceptance.
There may be some--albeit imperfect--solutions but they will not always be easy. We had better start down the road of enhanced detection.
The irony of this is that the altered audio of Pelosi makes her sound like Trump.
2
I simply cannot get past the idea that if you create something fake in order to spread misinformation and damage other people, you should be prepared to pay the consequences. If Mr. Brooks did something so underhanded, why would any reputable media outlet defend him? It appears the Washington Examiner likes personal accountability except when the person being held accountable is a conservative. A spade is a spade and a liar is a liar. Please tell the Examiner to take their politically correct complaints elsewhere.
358
So much of what we see and read is an illusion perpetrated by the media and its allies. The collusion hoax, the Avenatti love affair by the media, the Steele dosier, anything Adam Schiff says. The media is complicit in so many scandals its scary.
Of course, there are the many stories that the media tries to ignore too. Shouldn't the media be freaked out that the justice department, FBI and the DNC colluded to overthrow a duly elected President?
The list of real stories the the media chooses to ignore is too long to list. We need real journalism. JUst the facts.
These sort of comments give validity to Trump’s claims of fake news. Surely you did not intend to support Trump.
Life is an Illusion.
"All that we see or seem,
Is but a dream within a dream."
Edgar Allen Poe
I have no problem with any producer of fake video or other info being fully exposed to the public- and just as quickly as their garbage went viral. It can function as a deterrent- if everyone knows you are going to get caught quickly, then many will think twice.
Be nice if we had a president who would use the bully pulpit to make the public aware of the possibilities of fake content, so the public would have a more critical eye. But the person in the White House now benefits so much from fake content, and indeed creates much of it himself... As well, as stated in the article, people are wont to believe info that supports their previous conclusions regarding a politician, positive or negative. Democracy is always a mess.
I have no idea who was fooled by the obviously fake Pelosi video. Not well done. She did not even seem "drunk", she was just talking at low speed, especially if you know how she really does talk. It clearly was not her. Obviously fake.
Plus, the context was wrong. Ms. Pelosi doesn't seem to be the kind to get drunk, or drink beyond her capacity if she does.
This incident is just a useful tool for Trump-haters to hit at Trump and his supporters. Of that, nobody is being fooled.
8:16 am Mon
1
Social media and all that go with it, including fake videos, remind me metaphorically of the Biblical Tower of
Babel. In that story, the human race lost its ability to communicate, and thus to cooperate, by the profusion of languages, after which they could not understand each other. In our time, it occurs by the profusion of lies, whereby we cannot believe each other. The effect is the same, indeed, it is worse. I wish that all decent people would grasp that social media is not social - it is destroying society - and give it up, as individuals give up smoking - cancel their Facebook, Twitter, all of it. All the information is available to everyone that it causes social cancer. Yet people who should know better keep doing it.
2
The use of alias is only going to become more sophisticated and widespread. The same way delinquent landlords form LLCs to protect themselves from public ire. They don't want their name or their family's name attached to community slums. Not to mention legal liability. You'll find similar practices in deepfake production.
In fact, producers of deepfake content will probably weaponize their anonymity. Brand one producer as a responsible content provider. Create another one with poor credibility but known for outrageous content. The irresponsible producer publishes the deepfake and the responsible producer upcycles the fake thus broadening its viewership and legitimacy. Rinse and repeat.
The media is already engaged in this sort of process. Look at the dynamic working at Fox News for instance. What is "news" and what is entertainment? Fox intentionally blurs the lines of distinction.
We haven't reached the point of faking a person's actions. However, it's not impossible to imagine Sean Hannity introducing a fake video with the disclaimer "What if so-and-so did this?" The pretext is a hypothetical. However, the intent is to have the fake video go viral without the disclaimer. Like cropping the "reenactment" warning off the screen and treating the actors as real people.
That's the sort of coordination and misdirection we can expect from deepfake technology. We've only just begun to imagine how bad things will get.
2
“Sometimes, of course, your senses can deceive you, but that’s less likely than other people deceiving you.”
Your senses are not that reliable. That’s why measurement in science, using sophisticated devices, is so important.
Fake videos of ACORN, fake videos of Shirley Sherrod, and now fake videos of House Speaker Pelosi, what do they all have in common? They were all produced by conservatives for conservatives.
So, no it is not, “people are happy to believe absurd things”. Closer to the truth “conservatives are happy to believe absurd things.” And from Pizzagate, we learn there is nothing too absurd that conservatives won’t believe.
The important lesson of fake news from election 2016 was that fake news could only be marketed to conservatives. For whatever the reason, Democrats just didn’t buy enough fake news to create a fake news industry.
Unless and until mainstream news, such as the New York Times, stops it attempts to be fair and balanced and point out the one-sided nature of fake news, conservatives will be allowed continue with their denials with a “people” are at fault, rather than “conservatives” are at fault.
A balanced media only benefits the lairs.
1
Which is why McConnell will absolutely not allow any laws that might interfere with Russia ‘assisting’ our next election.
"We need to be prepared."
For what? We already live in a culture where people choose the "alternative facts" that suit them and journalists are demonized as the enemy. In India, mobs murder innocent people because of rumors posted on WhatsApp.
It's already over. We're polarized, we're tribal, we've chosen gullibility and willful ignorance and there's no going back.
The Internet, YouTube and social media didn't make us smarter or better informed. Like air travel, the Internet was better before it was democratized.
4
I strongly suggest that the distribution of ‘Deepfakes’ on social media be accompanied by the full name and associated contact information of the author/producer of the ‘Deepfake’. Such disclosure would eliminate the anonymity which protects the unscrupulous individuals who produce these modern-day versions of Soviet-era propaganda and thus would subject these propagandists to long overdue extreme public scrutiny and discipline in the marketplace of ideas, information and news.
1
"Digital technology is making it much easier to fabricate convincing fakes."
"Digital technology" also makes "it much easier" to DETECT counterfeit imagery:
1. Digital signatures can be used to reliably identify the source of an image. Images without such authentication should be viewed with skepticism. Digital signatures are commonly used to authenticate software.
2. Individual images can be checked for features not in authentic images. This method has been used to analyze art work. For example, Jackson Pollock "drip" paintings have been analyzed with machine vision:
Shamir, Lior. (2015) 'What makes a Pollock Pollock: a machine vision approach', Int. J. Arts and Technology, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp.1-10.
3. Automated image matching can be used to search for variants of an image on the internet or in an image archive and to classify the variants according to their degree of commonality. Thus, a taxonomy of related images can be constructed.
This approach could have been used to expose the forged photo that appeared to show John Kerry and Jane Fonda together at an antiwar rally. In fact, the forged photo was a composite of two separate photos.
See the Wikipedia article: "Kerry Fonda 2004 election photo controversy".
2
Not only do the mainstream media need to inform us about the truth, the entire truth and nothing but the truth, but social media itself need to be considered and treated like media as well. Regulations have always worked on radio, TV, newspapers etc... now it is time to regulate what comes out of the internet, especially the social platforms. Facebook, Tweeter and their friends are a dangerous platform, not a friendly one. Unfortunately not enough people are disconnecting from them. If nothing is done, we will get more and more fake videos like the one of Nancy Pelosi, more fake news created by the trumpistas of this world and their white nationalist or Russian allies and it will very difficult to live in a world that is not fake. How Orwellian is our world going to get?
Here is a dark conspiratorial thought... is all of the fakery a means to create a crises to allow the government to create a Ministry of Truth?
As fakery and disinformation becomes virulent and prevalent it becomes a crises. A democratic society cannot function without truthful information. The inability of the citizenry to be able to know truth from lies results in a crises of democracy and self-government.
A well meaning, or not, President calls it a national emergency and declares that the only information that can be published is that which is approved by the Government so "the people can know the truth."
He will say that freedom of the press is like any other freedom, (well, except guns of course) subject to regulations and licensing. The press shall be free to print the truth as issued by the Government.
Whatever the motivation for the lies and fakes they could have far greater ramifications and unintended consequences than those of initiated then thought of.
What happened to "Truth, justice, and the American way."? The "American way" shouldn't be about cowardly lying, deceiving, and making things up.
1
Deep fake video and other technology of deception? And these technologies combined with their opposite, technology of surveillance/exposure? And the sum of deception, exposure, advanced psychology, increased biological/genetic knowledge in a world which already has WMD? The only positive thing I can see from the sum of all these developments is that what philosophers and the most spiritual people have encouraged people to do for millenniums is now by technology, increased science, being forced upon humanity, meaning I cannot see how the result can be anything other than people gradually seeing through all disguises and this means eventually having oneself totally exposed, because it appears that the more one tries to fake reality but at the same time develops means to peel back reality eventuates in an acutely known, hyper conscious self which becomes interested simultaneously in how much one can disguise and reveal of oneself. The negative of all this of course is that the most powerful people, and the trend of development of weaponry, prefer as much as possible disguise and to not be exposed and there is no telling how a paranoid, constantly fending off exposure powerful person will act as layers of reality of body and psyche are constantly peeled away by counter disguise technology, exposing the person not only for all to see but exposing the person to him or herself. To weather future developments it would probably be best to become as philosophical, humorous as possible.
Can you imagine if DNA or other convincing evidence were subject to being faked? Chain of custody is maintained in criminal proceedings to insure that manipulation (planting evidence) does not occur. The author is right to point out that chain of custody of videos and news stories need the same attention.
Just as scary is who will have the power to tell the public what is fake and what is true?
2
Nothing will be done about it, as the technology makes Hollywood billions upon billions. And we all think it's "neat."
Solutions will range from turning the government into the arbiter of truth (a horrible idea) to making private corporations the arbiter of truth (ditto) to absolutely nothing. Of course, the thing to do is to not be slaves to our heavily propagandized, highly subsegmented, increasingly regimented Marketing Categories. That means transcending our narcissism, which is stroked at every turn by those trying to sell us something, which is, pretty much, all the powers that be. Critical thinking was never very popular: it requires staring into the mirror pretty much all the time.
It's actually not that hard to do, but few are interested in it. Brand loyalty, and all that, across the board. That's how you get Christians supporting a neofascist--or supposed progressives supporting essentially socially liberal Republicans of yore, which is what the Democrats have been since I was ten, pretty much (born 1970).
And of course, the reason this and all kinds of surveillance continues is because marketers love it, too. Profit AND power.
So, nothing will be done. We'll be told in the NYT that facial recognition makes us safe (ie, today, right next to this op-ed). And that big data gives us consumer choices. And that people we don't like don't deserve First Amendment protections for committing acts of journalism and publishing thereof. And so on.
Deep fakes are an opportunity for responsible journalism to reassert the value of their brands.
2
I'm a digital audio-visual editor. Deepfakes DO LOOK FAKE to me.
Pay very close attention to details.
Repeatedly. You can detect the anomalies that are NOT NORMAL sound, behavior, glitches. Editing is notoriously imprecise.
80
@Darkler
If you spend a few minutes watching a deepfake video three or four times, the anomalies will be visible.
Unfortunately, people who are hyper-partisan may not even watch a deepfake all the way to the end before forwarding it to others.
38
@Darkler You're "in the biz" - what about everyone else? And what about the increasing sophistication that is coming? How is your current expertise helpful unless you volunteer your services to help the public at large?
42
@Darkler
And a symphony conductor will hear that the third clarinet is playing the wrong note in a huge orchestral chord, but the audience would most likely never notice.
Distracted people watching low resolution videos on their phones are not going to notice the anomalies.
75
Another problem that no one seems to talk about is the certain segment of the population that will never believe that these were fakes in the first place. Those that assume they are being lied to at all times. Flat-Earthers or those who don't believe we ever landed on the moon. Half of the advertisements you see on social media start out "The one trick THEY don't want you to know about...." To me this shows that a good portion of the population just assumes they are being lied to if the information doesn't jive with what they (rightly or wrongly) already assume.
"In other words, you should only trust a recording if you would trust the word of the person producing it."
Computer scientists have already thought about that problem. Digital signatures have an associated "web of trust".
Web of trust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust
“Well, who ya gonna believe me or your own eyes?” -Chico Marx, Duck Soup
1
it was Groucho who asked Do you believe me or your lying eyes, I think
Deepfakes—
Yes.
I can record your voice, & with tech, precisely duplicate it—then create an audio tape of you saying anything I want you to say.
Deepfakes are fundamental biology.
From Robert Trivers', The Folly of Fools:
"Deception is a very deep feature of life. It occurs at all levels—from gene to cell to individual to group—and it seems, by any and all means, necessary.
When I say that deception occurs at all levels of life, I mean that viruses practice it, as do bacteria, plants, insects, and a wide range of other animals.
It is everywhere. ...
Deception infects all the fundamental relationships in life: parasite and host, predator and prey, plant and animal, male and female, neighbor and neighbor, parent and offspring, and even the relationship of an organism to itself."
More science re the fundamental nature of deception & self deception: "... the probability that we see reality as it is, is zero.” Donald Hoffman
Why is deception so fundamental to biology?
In part, because of this fundamental, selected relationship code:
Fitness > Truth.
"Fitness and truth are utterly different things."
"Organisms that see the truth go extinct when they compete against organisms that don't see any of the truth at all ... and are just tuned to the fitness function."
"Perception is not about seeing truth; it's about having kids." Don Hoffman
We are not prepared, nor coded—biologically or culturally—to handle our species' novel powers of global reach.
Exhibits A & B: Sky; Ocean.
3
What's next? Policing privately held opinions? Outlawing kneejerk reactions heard at the local watering hole?
There seems to be a movement building that seeks to throttle free speech just enough to squelch opposing voices, but not so much that the accuser's "truth" is questioned. Fear of doxxing is a control mechanism to achieve that end.
Anyone (even journalists) can color, bend, twist and influence stories with their word choice and placement. Are we being led down a rabbit hole reminiscent of the oppressive, paranoia-filled, dystopian worlds we routinely see depicted in today's fiction? Does our entertainment reinforce and complete this cycle of paranoia?
Stoking paranoia and expecting readers to abrogate their right to vet sources and reach their own conclusions is a step toward controlled messaging. It's not paranoia itself that is most consequential, but our fear of it.
25
@Brian: I don't believe that Prof. Rini is stoking paranoia. She is, however, encouraging us to be skeptical of politically charged and clearly partisan videos when we do not know their source. Yes, you are right to say that even straight reporting in the mainstream media can incorporate the biases of the reporters. But we already know this and we routinely compare what we read in one newspaper or see on one network with the information we gather from other media. Also, we do not expect mainstream media (not even Fox) to deliberately falsify videos. The wild west of the Internet is another story. Fantastic claims already reverberate across the Web. Deep fakes will lend deliberate falsehoods the aura of verisimilitude. Reporters and the public at large will need to be on their guard.
72
@Brian No one wants to throttle free speech. What is missing from speech these days is "inquiry" and "debate." we are too quick to take statements at face value and not inquire about their truth, the undeniability of what is being said.
29
@Brian
There is a world of difference between presenting a “privately held opinion” and intentionally lying about what has occurred. Opinion should be discussed and considered, while lying needs to be exposed and called out.
Video can be powerful evidence of what actually happened, so creating a false video and presenting it as real is lying in order to mislead.
I believe it is our obligation at every level of society to root out the misinformation and expose the lies so that we can have a discussion based on fact not fiction. Exposing the liars is an important part of that process so we can know who to trust.
99
There are folks who don't care about reality, who, for whatever reasons, desperately need "information" which makes them feel better about themselves. They look for it wherever it might be found. They are not particular about its source and are easily conned by anyone with the intelligence/talent to figure out their needs and the stomach to pander to them. They do not need a credible media; it's about the last thing they want. There are other folks who, for whatever reasons, have different self images to protect and do need/want a credible media as a source of information about reality. The question is, when distribution of "information" is widespread and essentially no cost, is the market for credible media large enough for it to make a living?
51
When the question "What is real' cannot be definitively answered, on any level, the whole of democracy and social duty is rendered impotent.
Autocrats are very pleased with this prospect.
456
@Winston Smith MOT
Mr. Orwellian:
You know, for a fact, absolutely, with no doubt, that nobody has ever answered the question, "What is real?"
I think this is known, in postmodern lingo, as a performative contradiction?
If nobody knows, that includes you.
However, if "Nobody" knows, perhaps we should consult Her.
I understand, by the way, She ran for president in 1968.
Vote for Nobody.
Nobody will raise your taxes.
Nobody will force you to fight useless foreign wars for oil.
That's real.
So is this.
10
@Ann O. Dyne
Much more than "democracy and social duty" is dependent on answering the question "what is real?"
Can any believer of Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, or Islam - the Bible or the Korean - tell us "what is real?"
We are surrounded by "autocrats" - because of religion. That is why Americans are so vulnerable to the "fake videos."
6
I don't understand why there should be any question about exposing the creators of fake videos. When it is done to create a negative false image it is a crime and should be treated as such. Such a video released a couple of days before an election could change the future of the country.
504
I completely agree. It’s libelous. And if it’s not criminally punishable, then social and financial consequences will do. Let them squirm or even lose their jobs and serve as an example to the next degenerate who’s considering this sort of side hustle.
98
@Rick Papin
We must remember that the Trump White House has been editing/manipulating news videos for many months now, so we cannot trust any video that comes from that Trump White House.
Cases in point: The edited version of Trump's presser with Putin in Helsinki, where the White Hose cut out a whole part of Trump's response (we know that because tons of other news outlets taped that news conference and we could compare it with them). Another: White House manipulation of the video of Jim Acosta of CNN when Acosta ran into the White House buzz saw some months ago. There may be others.
40
@Rick Papin
I'm in agreement with tying the creator of a published video with the product. I don't particularly care if it was done "to create a negative false" image. I would feel the same if it were
done to create a positive image. It's the manipulation that should be called out. The said item (video or audio) should clearly indicate that it has been altered or manipulated; if not, its intent is to mislead. Period.
37
I was thinking of just this sort of thing yesterday watching the Women's World Cup. They showed this supposedly definitive "Goal Line Technology" animation that showed that indeed, the Brazilian striker's header landed fully in the goal after hitting the crossbar.
I thought to myself, take a notoriously dicey organization (FIFA) in a notoriously dicey sport (soccer/football) and who is to say what they are showing us hasn't been manipulated...
1
With amateurs as well as professionals recording almost every human action, viewers will need to apply current journalistic standards to establish credibility. Unless a second or third video corroborates, think "fake news."
29
"Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear" needs to be revised for this digital era. Computer generated imagery entertains us in movies, but it will always deceive us. Another reason why we need the legitimate press more than ever.
78
The assumption is that deepfakes are somehow a threat solely from the right. They are not. Many on the left are in thrall to the notion that the end (terminating Trump's office, countering what they perceive to be voter disenfranchisement, etc.) justifies the means. And that the sacred cause of the Resistance justifies suspension of disbelief.
As Bette Midler said about her recent fake Twitter post about Trump, "but it sounds SO much like him that I believed it was true!"
@Wine Country Dude -- no it is by a large margin one side and in particular one President who is lying and producing the FAKE news. By labelling things as fake and trumpeting the false existence of the deep state they intend to confuse and discredit legitimate dissent. Of note the Pelosi videos. One does not need to produce FAKE videos or news about Trump or the Republicans. Their public statements, actions, tweets, stand for themselves.
@DRTmunich
Your comment exemplifies the particular conceit of the left.
1
Others have also recognized that it will be very difficult to stop the deepfakes: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-12-11/deepfakes-and-new-disinformation-war ("Deepfakes and the New Disinformation War," Jan/Feb 2019, by Chesney and Citron).
Both audio and video clips can be faked, and the technology may be available to anyone with a laptop (or even a phone?) and an internet connection. Authors of the above essay note: "...as deepfake technology develops and spreads, the current disinformation wars may soon look like the propaganda equivalent of the era of swords and shields." Doctored photos of the past will indeed seem crude instruments.
Some of these fakes can be used for teaching purposes, to enhance history, to show people figures from our past. That is not so much a concern (but those historical images could also be manipulated). Also from the above essay:
"But deepfakes can and will be used for darker purposes, as well. Users have already employed deepfake technology to insert people’s faces into pornography without their consent or knowledge, and the growing ease of making fake audio and video content will create ample opportunities for blackmail, intimidation, and sabotage."
The world's representational democracies will have to find a balance between total cynicism and blind acceptance.
There may be some--albeit imperfect--solutions but they will not always be easy. We had better start down the road of enhanced detection.
Ms. Rini writes as though this new technology will be so pervasive and good it will override our ability to think through the possibility of fakes; it will overwhelm our critical senses. But this has always been the case with some people; they have no interest in the truth and are happy to believe what is placed in front of them. But it will also always be the case that others will cast a critical eye on what they see, hear, and read. Ms. Rini gives too much credit to the first group, and not enough to the second.
3
Up until the middle of the 20th Century, less weight was given to eye-witness accounts of crime as evidence that were observed through the likely distortions of pre-plate or -float glass windows.
Must we now place similar restrictions on observations because of too much apparent clarity?
I skimmed through dozens of comments and replies after reading this article, Deepfakes Are Coming, and there were many calls for healthy skepticism on the part of the public. I failed to see one person mention the need for integrity as a requirement in both the public and private spheres. It is the missing characteristic in our society and it has been "missing in action" from the beginning of our culture.
A culture is defined by the things it values. We pay lip service to honesty, but too many of us value deception and profiteering from others gullibility. Our civic and business leaders pay lip service to "competition" in our capitalist social/economic culture when, in truthfulness, they seek to eliminate competition.
Conservatives berate "Big Government," but give free reign to "Big Business." I can go on and on.
We seem to value fiction over reality. I am 81. The one thing I have learned in my life is when my beliefs and actions collide too much with reality, reality wins every time. If we continue down the path we are following, our culture will cease to exist -- and that may not be a bad thing. It is very sad that so many people have to be hunt along the way.
12
Can blockchain technology, with it's ability to trace quickly to the source, be used to mitigate some of these problems? There are already some news outlet using it, and it seems to be growing quickly.
3
We all have experience of deep fakes. They're called commercials and we learn to distrust them even if they use prominent actors. A greater danger is he who labels all adverse news as fake and claims to be the only source of truth; he who says the source of accurate information is the enemy of the people.
11
The fundamental problem is that user identity verification was never designed into the basic architecture of the Internet. This is not impossible to fix, just very expensive. But as is the case in so many other situations, anonymity breeds irresponsibility.
14
scary stuff. With many people relying on trusted friends to provide information about an event -- testimony, and these trusted friends often being several degrees of separation from you, then we know we're headed for trouble. How many people thought the Pizzagate scandal was real because a "trusted" friend shared it on their social media? How many people think that the president -- as a candidate -- didn't mock a disabled reporter because they believe that the image was doctored, or a trusted friend said, "I was there, and I didn't see that?"
We have to be more skeptical of everything we see; question motivations and slow down before reaching a conclusion.
8
With the advent of manipulated images, we need professional journalism now more than ever. In the past, journalism served to uncover the truth. Now, journalism has an even greater responsibility, to define reality.
The attack by Trump and the right on professional journalism is the gateway to total mind control by those who profit from doing so. This is already happening on social media and right wing propaganda sites. It's big business and billions are made off of it every year. Manipulated images and video are cheap to produce. The profit potential is enormous.
With our ultra liberal freedom of speech laws, anything goes under its protection. The founders did not consider CGI back in 1790. It looks like we are going to have to face up to loosing some freedom of speech by regulating fake information, or our citizenry will be turned into robots, ruled by fake information.
The markets cannot fix this problem. People will gladly pay money to hear what they want to hear. Most will not pay money to be told the truth. The truth is then a market disincentive to journalism.
Without the truth, demagoguery will flourish. Looks like it already is.
82
When reality is not what it appears to be, how do we train ourselves not to trust what we see and not react to it?
Fortunately it’s only 3000 years ago that humanity had invented a technique called meditation. It slows down reaction time, protecting us from various biases, confirmation bias in the case of Deepfakes. These biases served an evolutionary purpose in the niche we evolved in. But that’s changed so these are maladaptive in a world where we can’t trust what we see or hear.
Buddha correctly identified that mistaking our perception for reality is the root cause of all suffering.
In the Western tradition we used to call such restraint, critical thinking and forbearance as character building. We don’t teach that anymore!
12
@GV Perhaps by "teach" you mean parents, guardians, society in general. Or perhaps you place the burden "teach" where most people do: public education. That would certainly be reacting to common biases. There are failures and shortcomings in public education, but blaming it for everything from lousy service at Dennys to this stain in our White House is a cop out. Whatever happened to free will?
My one hope is that all of this stuff contains the seeds of its own destruction. Soon (thought not soon enough IMO) people simply won't believe that any charged opinion on facebook, twitter, youtube, etc. is genuine. Social Media (a term that is ready to be put out to pasture) will go back to being what it is best suited for: a forum for swapping pie recipes and photos of beach vacations and celebrities being paid to hold up a can of soda.
5
@Diego I hope you’re right, but I fear the opposite is happening: many people outright reject mainstream media reports as fake, and take internet craziness (as long as it confirms their opinions) as the truth.
12
Deepfake videos are going to cause a lot of problems.
Eyewitness testimony already has.
What we see and remember are much more fallible than we like to believe. Many people have spent years in prison or have even been executed because witnesses didn't actually see what they thought they saw, or because what they remembered didn't happen the way they remembered it.
The ancient philosopher Thales of Melitus said that the past is certain, the future obscure. Unfortunately, he was wrong about the past. Even about the past we think we know from videos.
So let us go forth into this brave new world, confident in the knowledge that we shouldn't be too confident anymore in what we think we know.
12
Last July, Trump told his audience at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Kansas City, Mo. "Just remember: What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."
The confluence of "deep fakes" and the presidential "fake news" promulgator in the White House is so ironic!
It is not only the responsibility of the public to be skeptical about what they are seeing (and hearing), but it is also the duty of the media outlets that publish/promote the deep fakes that are posted on their web sites. The fact that Facebook refused to remove the fake Pelosi video is ample evidence that they abdicated its role in overseeing the veracity of what is posted there.
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc. have the technical ability to determine which of the posts are authentic, while the general public does not. To think that individuals have the capacity to do so simply ensures that such "deep fakes" can and will proliferate.
Unless and until these media giants are legally forced to review, announce, and delete these fabrications, the public will easily be able to be hoodwinked by political operatives, both here in the U.S. and also by foreign agents. Didn't we have enough of this duplicity in 2016?
16
None of these developments occurs in a bubble. In academic publications, for example, reliable digital tools have emerged that make it relatively easy for editors to detect degrees of plagiarism. It is not at all inconceivable, therefore, to expect similar countermeasures to emerge for these types of new technologies. What's nevertheless concerning is that such detection undeniably is making the ordinary citizen more and more dependent on third-party expertise that's outside the realm of traditional journalism. As these technologies are getting consolidated and monopolized under the umbrella of big tech companies at an astonishing pace, the power of journalism, a key pillar of a healthy democracy, is eroding just as quickly.
12
One, perhaps the only way, to deal with this is to hold the medium or carrier of those messages accountable for content. If content is covered by the 1st Ammendment, no probem. If it constitutes a punishable violation of personality right or relevant laws, the "author" and, more importantly, the carrier of such a message should be responsible for immediately removing or not publishing it in the first place - just like conventional media are held accountable. So-called social media make so much money by providing platforms for spreading punsihable content that they should pay for punishable stuff spread via their platforms.
17
We need to be teaching critical thinking to all our young people. Believe it or not, this is a required course for college freshmen in China and used to be required at some American colleges, but has fallen into disuse because it falls under the department of philosophy, which most Americans disparage as useless to achieving their short term goals of wealth and power.
79
@Dan Woodard MD
I am in high-tech and work with a lot of people from both China and India.
At the risk of generalizing, they seem to be much better at scoring well on tests than critical thinking.
Maybe the people I work with missed that course.
2
I was in a class with a CIA agent 12 years ago we needed a camera for the course. When he broke out his old Canon camera I scoffed at it
He told me to never trust a digital image due to what he saw at work. I’ve always kept that in mind.
11
That adage is less true now. Publishers tend to only accept photographs in digital format now, and what film is shot often has to be scanned in order to digitize the image.
1
Deepfakes are a double-edged sword. We need to notice the potential benefits, and not just the dangers. Private citizens, not to mention the intelligence services, will be able to dilute or undo the effect of Youtube advocates and recruiters for poisonous causes by putting up deepfake videos of leaders seeming to undermine their actual pitches. What if a digital animation of Osama bin Laden had shown up on Youtube saying it was time for the righteous to abandon terrorism? Of course, the upshot would be confusion. The easily swayed wouldn't know what to think. That might be OK.
@Charles
That's called propaganda.
Just curious: are there any documented instance of a left-leaning individual or group producing a doctored video? My recollection is that they all have come from the right, although I may be wrong about that.
If my supposition is correct that it is the right responsible for further debasing the political process through false, malicious and frequently juvenile means, what does that tell us about the kind of Americans to whom the Republican party is attractive?
And what does that tell us about the leadership of the Republican party that would create a culture in which this sort of thing is acceptable, despite their patently hallow protestations to the contrary. Is this who America really wants to "lead?"
16
@Bounarotti Great question. I can't think of any either, but I wouldn't rule it out. Thing is, the mainstream media, including NYT, will likely just say that both sides do it, so that they don't infuriate the right wing.
Kinda what is going on with not using the term "lie".
Deepfakes are a double-edged sword. We need to notice the potential benefits, and not just the dangers. Private citizens, not to mention the intelligence services, will be able to dilute or undo the effect of Youtube advocates and recruiters for poisonous causes by putting up deepfake videos of leaders seeming to undermine their actual pitches. What if a digital animation of Osama bin Laden had shown up on Youtube saying it was time for the righteous to abandon terrorism? Of course, the upshot would be confusion. The easily swayed wouldn't know what to think. That might be OK.
No different than saying Trump's 10000 lies are OK and for the good of the country.
The old adage "don't believe anything you hear or read and only half what you see" is probably good advice these days.
3
If don’t get our democratic act together, these kinds of videos will be useful material to the next dishonest, predatory president we elect. It is indeed time to learn to be citizens learning to fight for democracy
6
Just one more reason to stay off social media. The more I read about how its exploited, the less I want to ever have anything to do with it.
23
@Ms. Pea Admirable goal but most of the public will continue to get their information from social media. The most tragic thing about the Age of Information is that we never expected the computer to be an accelerant of bad information. Looks like we are only at the beginning of a huge problem.
12
There's much concern about potential dangers inherent posed by general artificial intelligence. But an even more pressing concern, one that's on our doorstep right now, are deepfakes, be they audio, video, linguistic, or a combination.
This is a story that gets written about in editorials like this, or in news articles that are mostly overlooked. But this is a 5-alarm, house-on-fire story that will make the Russian interference in our 2016 election look quaint. If an average person is persuaded that a recording or video is real (even if it's debunked), then the rule of law has little chance of surviving. After all, how can anyone determine the truth if you literally have to be somewhere in person to witness something?
Imagine a "video" of Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi discussing how climate change is a hoax designed to empower a New World Order by liberals. Or a "recording" where Robert Mueller says he has to "get" President Trump, no matter the evidence.
If we're not all alarmed by deepfakes, we're not paying close enough attention.
51
@jrinsc, Agreed and imagine also a demagogue claiming that a real video of him saying something is a deep fake. This can give partial cover for really bad deeds and make the consequences of them just go away, at least to a certain & of people. It's like reality-flak that allows a bad person to get out of media danger for just long enough to survive.
4
@mcomfort
Absolutely, and this is already something we're seeing: President Trump calls real news "fake" and fake news on Infowars "real." In the future, someone questioning a deepfake video will be seen as either a member of the "deep state" or as someone easily duped. And, as you say, a demagogue will find some "expert" to claim a real video is fake.
Once people no longer trust anything they see or hear, authoritarianism will fill the void, providing stability and certainty to a "deepcynical" world.
4
Multiple seasons of tv's Mission Impossible, regularly entertained us while overthrowing governments vis fake videos, photographs, people. Welcome to reality.
Truth be told, technology has always been "dangerous". The Facebook / fake video combination is just the latest incarnation of the dangers the technology poses.
It should be emphasized that in the case of the Pelosi video, Pizzagate, birther movement, etc. the real dangers of the disinformation, and misuse of technology, weren't necessarily the problem. People's misuse of technology is the problem, and more importantly the videos and associated rumors could have been stopped dead in their tracks - without Facebook's involvement.
So who could have stopped it? Who should be stopping it? The POTUS and other "leaders". Unfortunately, they are the ones creating this drivel.
6
Epistemology?
The Texas Republican Party platform (2012) stated where, for example, The Washington Examiner is coming from:
"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills ...which have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
The goal is a credulous, uneducated populace defenseless against the cheating, anti-fact, anti-science fakery serving BIG MONEY (or, as The Washington Examiner would have you believe: "freedom of speech").
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The majority of biblical scholars believe that at least three of the letters in the New Testament attributed to the Apostle Paul were not actually written by him but are forgeries. Most evangelicals refuse to believe this because acknowledging there are forgeries in the Bible would force them to change a world view they are very comfortable with.
Deception of one kind or another is as old as civilization and has often worked very effectively. People believe what they want to believe. Now decevivers simply have a new tool to use. And they will use it skillfully.
30
@Hubert Nash except that the early Christian community--and most contemporary theologians-- would not see these letters as forgeries or some kind of first century version of a deepfake; they are pseudepigraphical works and were probably written to honor the alleged author and not to deceive the community of believers. Forgery is not the word that you are looking for here. Of course, yeah, you can do that thing where you use a 21 century label on a first century practice (presentism), but it's not a good move to make.
2
@Hubert Nash . . yes, and the "letters' attributed to Paul are the least of the "biblical" inerrancy of the book . . . William Wilson dallas press club 1981 dallas texas
1
Videography, like photography, is just a tool to express the maker's intent. Digital technologies have allowed this intent to be weaponized, using basic skills and tools. It has also made this capability available to anyone at low cost. We should not be surprised when malevolent people take advantage of these technologies for their own purposes.
In just a decade or so, people have been conditioned to the possibility that photos have been "Photoshopped." Hopefully the same awareness for videos will become ingrained as more faked videos are released and viewed. Readers need to maintain a skeptical eye and look at more than one source of information when developing their thoughts and opinions.
16
The real problem here is stated in the title "We can *no longer* believe what we see". When could we? Misleading photographs and edited video have always been a useful tool for manipulating people.
Another good one: providing a back story to a video or photo that no one bothers to verify, but that becomes the basis for demonizing (or lionizing) the subject of that media.
Manipulation of images has always been the norm, and I would argue we're already too trusting.
14
Images have always been as reliable as the person using them. From 19th century "spirit" photography to the the "gotcha" photographs of supermaket tabloids, photographs have been used to mislead. Deceptive political video exploded in the last 20 years; the most successful deceptions were effected simply through editing & the creation of false situations, like the Acorn & Planned Parenthood videos. Equally effective is recontextualizing an image to tell people how they should react to it: the infamous scream video that was widely seen as derailing Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign was effective largely because the media accepted the idea that an unflattering image should legitimately be taken as representing character. Colin Powell's photographs of Iraq's "WMD's" may not have convinced the UN, but the American media pretended that they were convincing. The problem today in identifying visual dishonesty isn't technology, but a mass media in the service of certain narratives.
The urgent danger of digital technology and "social media" doesn't come from altered videos but from the fact that we are being robbed of the ability to assess the authority of sources, and to choose & digest information based on our desire for truth. When we view the world through viewlists or recommendations that are based on algorithms that know everything about us & are designed only to hold onto our eyes & emotions, then objectivity and freedom of thought are, literally, meaningless.
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"(If that seems an absurd thing to believe, remember Pizzagate; people are happy to believe absurd things about politicians they don’t like.)"
Truer words never spoken. Suspension of belief begins and ends with one's political or personal persuasion.
I find this new form of slander to be extremely dangerous, but again, no more dangerous than conspiracy thinking in general. But it just makes me think, buyer beware: know your sources, learn how fact check, and don't accept anything on face value unless its origin checks out.
Of course that requires time and energy, conditions of good citizenship. I'm not holding my breath, given the shenanigans of the last election, the perversion of truth over the past 4 years, and the willingness of so many to believe what they want to.
13
@ChristineMcM
“Shenanigans” seems too mild a word for the deceit and disinformation in the last election.
1
Watch TV ads. Look at the happy faces of people with advanced Rheumatoid arthritis playing Tennis, while they get a $30,000/year series of injections. Or the seriously depressed, now happy and re-engaged in their lives. Or the young woman transported to beautiful locales by buying a certain automobile. The image and advertising industry has been manipulating our concept of real life for decades, but we had relegated that to that portion of our mind that was just about products, not our civil life.
And we keep saying,: "I am not influenced by those silly ads".
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@William D Trainor The difference is we know that these are advertising - we know the sources and we know that they are exaggerating in order to sell something. Easily understood.
3
@k2isnothome
Right I'm not influenced either.
@William D Trainor, we have been inoculated against TV-based advertising for almost 70 years now - this is something new. Real people being shown doing/saying something they didn't actually do/say to swing an election, and the by-product of that - real, un-faked videos of horrible deeds potentially being discounted as fake by their subjects.
If deep fakes would have been an ascending, known thing just three years earlier, don't you think Trump would have called the Access Hollywood video a deep fake, or at least the audio portion of it? One quick lie and he's partially off the hook, or has at least thrown some flak in the air.
1
The Constitution protects our 1st Amendment "right to parody". Drafting a court ruling, or writing a law, that attempts to balancing that right against speech that poses a "clear and present danger" or a credible instance of "slander/libel" would definitely not be easy.
While we await that event, the old nostrum still has merit: "Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see."
9
The answer is to go back to the old (pre-Watergate) journalistic rule: Believe something if you saw it with your own eyes or if you got the information from two independent trusted sources whose identities are known.
And that means that the main stream media must also go to that standard before reporting anything whatsoever.
There was, and is, good reason that from ancient times two witnesses were required to convict for a criminal act.
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@John Graybeard The mainstream media is no longer the major disseminator of news or "news." That's the problem. There are hundreds of thousands of channels through which people now receive input. All largely unfettered by any responsible oversight.
15
@John Graybeard Ummm, the "main stream media" (which is the say, the real, actually fact-checked media) does follow and has always followed this rule. The fact that you believe they don't (no doubt because you read it on a fake-news outlet like Breitbart or Fox or The Gateway Pundit) is a huge part of the problem.
2
To call for all videos to name the original source, and whether or not it was made for journalism, entertainment or theatrical production will have no traction at all. We cannot even trust places like YouTube or Facebook to label (when obvious) that something is a fake, or remove it if the intent is to deceive.
At least Penn and Teller, the conjurers, say flat out that they are here to deceive you, with their skill of course.
We cannot expect anything from our legislators. After all, we cannot get them to attach the responsible congresspeoples' names to pork legislation or poison pills in bills which are supported by the majority of people, yet killed by 'someone' who introduced language into the bill that makes it impassible. The mystery of how some sections get into law is hidden behind the malfeasance of our own lawmakers.
12
I'm not really convinced that the new technologies are creating new problems. The problem has always been with our own biases and prejudices. I never for one second believed the Pelosi video or Pizzagate were real. I never believed the lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction either. On the other hand, although I'm not a scientist, I believe its claims about global warming and vaccines. I don't think my blind faith in science is good, though--look at the terrible lies scientists told us about Oxycontin and Hormone Replacement Therapy for menopause. I'd be better off treating my own beliefs more sceptically Our ability to doubt is all we have, and we should cling to it for dear life.
16
It was funny to watch Jimmy Kimmel do that with Trump clips, but you knew what was going on. Being able to make changes and not inform the people watching the clip is where the trickery becomes fake. I don't know how many times I show various friends that the post they are passing on is fake, and yet they still believe. It's a mindset that is locked in before the fake product is presented.
6
Many years ago, in 1988, I was working in a research image processing lab, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and software to enhance images from spacecraft. Very few could do what we could do.
I remember the day we first got a copy of Photoshop. Primitive as it was by today's standards, all of us in the lab looked at one another and said: " by and by, photographic truth is dead".
Well, here we are.
This genie is not going back in the bottle.
I will, however, propose a partial solution: no more anonymity.
Yes, yes, privacy ... I get it. But online is the modern equivalent of the town square. When you engage online you are now engaging in the public sphere. You have declared a desire to engage that exceeds your desire for privacy. Good for you.
However, if I walk through a town, publicly speaking, but wearing a hood or a mask, will anyone trust me? Believe me? Of course not. I will be treated with extreme suspicion. What am I hiding? Who am I to be believed? What am I afraid of?
Well, that is how it should be online. If you want to speak, you are free to do so but you are not free to hide and you are not free from consequences. Speak freely, but with care and openness.
Much of our recent dysfunction with "the truth", is based in the anonymity of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, 4Chan, etc.
If Google, Facebook, et al. want to address this issue, tweaking a few algorithms won't do it.
Getting rid of the anonymous online presence will.
519
@Paul Fisher I agree that anonymity on the internet is the crux of current predicament, but it is extremely easy for unscrupulous actors to imitate someone's credentials. Even if people have to reveal their identities, we have no way of knowing if people are who they say they are.
32
@Thad
Understood and agreed.
But *that* is the technological challenge we should be solving. Applying the same technologies found in public key encryption and block chain to an integrated solution to privacy and trustable provenance and identity is not impossible.
For now, the online world is a wonderful example of what anarchy actually looks like.
Libertarian purists should take note.
Free-for-all is not a viable, long term, solution.
52
@Paul Fisher
The NY Times, CNN, and other news media outlets, even Fox News are held to account for their content. Social media are not. But, social media are now a huge source of news content, and yet deny any responsibility for what shows on their platforms.
34
We keep complaining about this...but do not consider the simple things that could start to make things better.
I have long advocated that the providers of internet content need to label their wares as "fact", "opinion", or "entertainment". If they are found to falsely pass opinion or entertainment as fact, they are fined (first offense) and required to make a public retraction. Second offense...a bigger fine. Third offense they are banned from a presence on the internet for two years. They still persist, they spend some time in jail and are banned from the internet for life.
21
Who complained that the Daily Beast exposed the fraud and the fraudster? The Washington Examiner, a Fake News source of the worst kind, that's all.
In an Orwellian age where Trumpanzees are lied to and love ever lie of it, we can only hope that some day we will evolve out of this nightmare and the fraudsters will be packed away. You will know this is happening when someone finally shuts down Fox News.
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“You should only trust a recording if you would trust the word of the person producing it.”
EXACTLY! Very timely and well-said. This why we should not believe a word Donny-the-Trumpster says unless it is verified by a reputable source.
46
What the creator of this video did is not free speech, or comedy, it is slander/libel, and ought to be against the law - both civil and criminal.
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@Pundit (1) US slander/libel law doesn't work that way (2) what if the video had been fake, but deeply complimentary to its subject?
The problem here isn't whether or not deepfake technology is used to slander/libel someone, it's that it is used to create falsehood.
7
@Paul Davis When it is used to slander/libel someone, there is more than one problem....
4
If you can’t believe anything the president says because he lies all the time, and you can’t believe anything you read because of rampant manipulation of social media, and soon you won’t be able to believe any kind of digital visual images, what can and should you believe?
What is worse—images of real people saying and doing things they never really said or did, or images of made-up people saying and doing things they actually said and did? How will we even know if a person we’ve seen on a screen truly exists at all?
I think we are at the point where Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality have merged to form a new technology—Artificial Reality.
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@Jack Sonville
Ah! An artificial reality for an artificial culture. A good fit. The reality that disappoints so many can now be greatly enhanced. Onward!
3
Oh, the possibilities! Now a certain person (or anyone, for that matter) can be on video saying/doing vile things and simply claim “fake video “. On the other hand, imagine ruined reputations by “doctored” videos. As a teacher, I can dream up a bunch of nightmare scenarios that might come to haunt us as the necessary technology becomes more widely available. That would take bullying to unprecedented levels. I am scared.
22
In a rapidly devolving post truth world, fake and bake video will grow and prosper.
Fight for truth as if your life depended on it.
It might someday.
14
It does already!
1
There's no need to alter videos of Trump to create a distorted perception of him. He does that all by himself.
8
People will believe what they want to believe.
And that is the heart of the problem.
All the facts in the world will not persuade some people that what "they know to be true" is indeed fake.
Right now, America has about 40% of the populace who accept Trump's daily lies as truth. And nothing, no amount of facts, evidence, proof and details will convince them otherwise.
16
@D. DeMarco Agreed. A belief system is a core value in the human brain, and even with overwhelming evidence to the contrary cannot change but incrementally.
1
@D. DeMarco
Trump says: It's a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. You run to the window and observe that there are a few clouds scattered about the blue sky. You scream: Liar! The 40% (shall we call them deplorables?) say to themselves: I get it, it's a nice day out there.
This is the heart of the problem.
8:07 am Monday
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@John Xavier III
A few clouds? More like thunderheads and tornados!
1
Ms. Rini writes:
"It’s good for journalists to start getting in the habit of tracking down creators of mysterious web content."
A good idea... BUT... the number of journalists who are available to do the "tracking down" is diminishing at the same time as the number of "creators of mysterious web content" is increasing.
So who should be responsible for "tracking down creators of mysterious web content"? It seems to me that the owners of the technology platforms have a responsibility to do so the same way that that newspaper owners have a responsibility to ensure that their content is factual...
24
This is the essence of how social media ought to be regulated. Forget the algorithms that seek out bad language, Fascism, Racism or even fake videos. What’s needed is that every person using the media have an individual license/certification that acknowledges understanding proper use of the medium. Perhaps one rule would be no uploading fake videos. Violators would have their privileges removed at least temporarily. If you think this is draconian it’s the first line of licensing any profession from plumbing to medicine. Time to bring certification to social media and the Internet.
40
You make an excellent point! To design a structure, to modify a plumbing system, to install electrical systems, all require licences or certifications... because all of these things have the potential for dire consequences (loss of life or limb) if done improperly. Licences and certifications provide accountability and ensure that that individual understands both the material (their respective trade) and effects they can have if not carried out properly. I agree with you that it is time that we think about taking a similar approach to social media. For that matter, I would like to see it applied more heavily in the media sector overall.
5
Fake video? We can no longer believe what we see? What about the fact we are reluctant to see what we can see, that we would be as troubled by a Super Real video as by a Fake video and that both technologies and more are coming?
Technology over the course of the 20th century was troubling enough (WMD) but now with advances on multiple fronts we have the capacity to not only disguise ourselves and to deceive others but to reveal others or have ourselves revealed as never before. We have technology which makes fake video, fake reality possible, but we also have deep surveillance, deep psychology and other advancements getting more deeply into the human mind, penetrating false fronts wherever they may be.
If we can imagine the psychologically healthy person being one not particularly willing to be armed and to deceive others, and not particularly fearing to have secrets exposed, then the human race is a sad case indeed, for we already have WMD and now we have a mad race to not only disguise ourselves and deceive others but to penetrate other's defenses while preserving our own, and who knows how a powerful person, one with hand on WMD, will react if defenses are breached and the person is exposed in far more revealing fashion than ever was technologically, psychologically, possible than in past.
The development of a very good sense of humor is advised: Be prepared to laugh when somebody falls, and be prepared to laugh at oneself because one will surely fall.
Fraud occurs, we get to the bottom of it. But an attempt to rationalize not exposing someone who commits a fraud or publicizes a misleading illustration simply because they are a single citizen and not of foreign influence is the ill sign of our times.
If corporations are people too, need I say more?
15
@Guy Walker--I agree. That reaction was very close to supporting the behavior now and in the future.
11
Two items I couldn't believe. The first a PBS news item about melting Antartic Ice. One of the models said sea level was to go up 5 feet disregarding the models that said less. It didn't mention volcanic activity was melting ice below the surface but it did blame climate change. Same with Glacier National Park. The Glacier is doing fine. Models of its demise aren't. Accusations of cherry picking events in Montana bear no resemblance to cherry picking flooding as evidence in the Mid West. You believe what lies you want to believe.
Video evidence that's a different story. One picture speaks a thousand words. Video's, however, slow things a bit when you're looking for facts. But if all you are is a reduction in someone's marketing plan (they have apps or that) you better learn the difference between integrity and identity politics. Don't believe people that say there are things more important than the truth.
3
@JoeG
If you had seen the changes in Glacier Park over the time period that my wife, a Montanan, has seen, you would have a different opinion or baldly deny fact. The same goes for your not experiencing (my personal) observations of glaciers in Alaska. Please expand your sources of information to better understand the climate crisis.
P. S. Do you by any chance work in the fossil fuel industry?
3
@JoeG Hmmmm. so addtessing the established reality of catastrophic climate change is somehow "identity politics," but Nazis openly marching in the streets is not?
The Republican Party is (and has been for quite some time, since long before Trump, although he deepened and accelerated the practice) the foremost purveyor of identity politics in the US. But it's not perceived that way by many white people, because white supremacy is normative.
3
@JoeG
"It didn't mention volcanic activity was melting ice below the surface but it did blame climate change."
I'd be more skeptical of such a claim from PBS than I would be if I read it in a peer-reviewed scientific venue. That's because scientists are trained not to fool themselves ("The first rule is you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool" -R Feynman). Science's authority depends on both empirical rigor and intersubjective verification, i.e. "peer review" broadly defined. You don't have to be comprehensively literate in a scientific subject to know what information to trust, if you're scientifically "meta-literate" (blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2013/02/scientific-meta-literacy). If you read it in respected journals like "Nature" or "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences", you can be reasonably sure it's been verified in detail. That's what middle- and high-school students need to be learning.
In the case of Antarctic ice, for example, in 2014 scientists reported that volcanic heat is melting a small area of that vast icy continent from below (pnas.org/content/111/25/9070.full), making a relatively minuscule contribution to sea level rise. Warmer air, however, is melting *all* of Antarctica's land ice from above, while warmer seas are attacking its floating ice shelves from below (nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0179-y). IOW, climate change really is to blame for globally rising seas.
3
Chalk up more victories for the GOP.
Very few schools across the country have the luxury of teaching critical thinking skills. The rest must teach to the test, which means children never learn how to distinguish fact from fiction.
I am 100% certain that the GOP will take full advantage of this technology to smear democrats while the democrats will appoint a commission, get bogged down in the language, fight among themselves and finally do nothing. And so it goes.
55
A political deepfake is one thing. It is controvertible in most instances and mostly convinces the already convinced base and appeals to meme chasers and people of low critical thinking. Imagine how deep fakes can affect criminal law where people are set up for vindictive or bizarre motives and the justice system takes them prima facie ?
11
Citizens must develop a healthy degree of skepticism about what they see and hear, especially on the web. Too often, folks get stirred up about content which is highly questionable. A few clicks for someone like me (a born skeptic) comes up with information identifying the content as 'urban myth' or something which has been floating around the web on & off for years. As providers of such content become more skilled, it will be harder and harder even for us dyed-in-the-wool skeptics to separate the valid from the fake.
I hope that parents and schools are helping our youth to develop a healthy skepticism. They will also need excellent skills to rate information on the web, know how to look for sources behind information they find, and be able to identify trustworthy experts to confirm or deny what they read. The future of a healthy democracy depends upon having an adequately informed electorate.
6
This technology has been around professionally (Pixar, etc.) for years, but it is just recently reaching a more general realm. Propaganda is very used to using fakes, and propaganda is about all we get these days.
20
@skepticus
Yes, thanks for saving me writing the comment. To add: once you are in the digital domain, all you have to do is create a file(s) to do whatever is needed from managing automobile engine fuel and spark to making a cartoon. It's all 1s and 0s. My personal favs are the talking animals, etc., in TV ads. Americans are incredibly gullible (25% HS drop-out rate). Little wonder the Russians played us like a cheap fiddle. See Vol I of the Mueller report.
8
We'll need cryptographic protection of digital contents (un-falsifiable signatures of authors and/or hardware) not only for text but also for media. The content industry has made sure that the consumer side is protected (you can play content only on authorized devices); it's time to protect the production side as well (you cannot pretend that a video is an unaltered camera copy unless it is).
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@Peter Schneider - re. "cryptographic protection of digital contents (un-falsifiable signatures of authors and/or hardware) not only for text but also for media." This is a brilliant idea. Not the entire solution, but this could be a tool that could help establish authenticity. Apple, for instance, could pursue this, as they are now attempting to claim to be a in leader in privacy and trust. Or better yet, maybe we need a new open source effort to create a technology and a protocol - one that is powerful, verifiable, and well-known - that can help to build trust in video and audio source material.
2
"We'll need cryptographic protection of digital contents ..."
You are describing "digital signatures", which are commonly used to authenticate software.
For example, Microsoft only releases signed device drivers and other software. That helps prevent users from unwittingly installing malware:
"Windows device installation uses digital signatures to verify the integrity of driver packages and to verify the identity of the vendor (software publisher) who provides the driver packages." (Microsoft web site)
2
For years, the critical review of images, still and moving, has suggested that all images have the potential to reveal or conceal important truth. New video technology heightens that concern, requiring that we learn to think critically about information we might have previously taken at face value. But Rini is too optimistic in her view that clear attribution of sources will remedy this problem. How can I evaluate the truthfulness of a source? Isn’t that evaluation reliant on mediated sources of information that are also vulnerable to manipulation? Isn’t that part of what the investigation into the Russian social media operations of the 2016 elections revealed?
Investigating and thinking critically about each and every bit of information pertinent to us is burdensome. Unfortunately, the alternative appears to be a modern version of solipsism: I can trust only what I see in my immediate surrounds with my own eyes. That may well lead to greater parochialism and thus national fragmentation. I yearn for some good ol’ ethics and community standards: that people should not intentionally lie and that we should not pass along gossip (unverified claims).
15
@JP
Bravo. We need better people. Blinded by noise and non-sense. My Dad used to teach Civics long ago. I remember him telling me it was discontinued because people felt it was not longer needed. Even then, I was just a kid, it jolted me. Down the slippery slope.
6
Sadly, I doubt many Trump loyalists will check for the veracity of the film. What is deeply disturbing is the likelihood of such videos increasing anger & hostility toward those with different views. Yes, I hope the responsible media will share as often as possible any & all fake videos and the origin if possible. Thanks for the alert.
While I have enjoyed pictures shared by friends and family on Facebook, it is time to close my account as much over protesting what the Company fails to do as for my own protection from the fake videos. I really don’t have time to investigate the origin or reliability of every video.
20
Not mentioned are the troubling First Amendment issues that Deepfake video raises.
Realistic fake videos are clearly going to make viral politics even more effective. But they are almost certainly legally protected as creative products, so cannot be completely banned.
That means it is once again going to be the responsibility of the internet media giants to police content. Why do I get the feeling they aren't quite up to the job?
12
I'm NOT convinced that this will be so easy to do. There will be a digital foot print of SOME kind that will make it possible to point out fakes. We need to prepare for changes. We need to be aware of technology. We need to take all of this with a grain of salt. Remember the "printable" guns. That was a few years ago. I can't remember reading about the plastic AR15's and plastic bumpstocks. Let's educate ourselves. Let's also calm down.
3
@LoisGH
Who polices it all? Who exposes it all? Who has the resources to expose it all on a media (the world wide web) that is vast?
I wondered why internet sites like "Infowars" are not shut down. That website providers just say no, we will not host you but even if Google, GoDaddy or other American based website providers did refuse to provide the necessary platform how do we control the world? A white nationalist site is hosted by a company from the Philippines. How do we counter that? How do we instill incredulity in a gullible, tribal public? Especially when enraged or fearful? We are counseled to not make decisions in anger but evidence proves we do so, all the time. Anger and fear are a great manipulation tool. The only way to counter this manipulation is education. Not by the public schools, it's far too late or early for that, but with a responsible media that immediately calls out the fakes. Especially You-tube, Facebook, Twitter and any other media that allows these fake videos to go unchallenged. As private entities freedom of speech does not apply. They can censor and if they want to be seen as responsible corporations they must. Truth in advertising is a supposed law. Truth in media like FB, Youtube, Google and such is even more important. Literally life and death as shown by the "Pizzagate" video, or the "Baby parts" video. With the first people could have died, the second people did die. There is no excuse to continue to turn a blind eye to this danger.
3
@sharon
I'm not sure it matters who polices it or who exposes it.
Once it's published it's out there and it has become something that someone can point to in order to prove his/her point of view.
1
@sharon Can we as a nation create and maintain a "clean" news space via strict regulations and licensing? In order to call your product "news", you have to adhere to standards of investigation, substantiation, fairness, and truth; failure or refusal to do so means losing your license and the right to the term "news," and your product become just one more object floating in the cesspool of unsubstantiated garbage.
Ms Rini raises an important warning flag to all of us and far too many of us will ignore it. Including the media, the political parties' propaganda outlets, and without exception, our politicians.
As the infotainment world accelerates into virtual reality, the cost of needed resources to produce illusion will drop to insignificance. The judgement to discern fact from fiction will stay conflicted in an increasingly partisan atmosphere. Partisan divides, characterized by vindictiveness and a Leninesque philosophy that the ends justify the means will use the technology to futher agendas across a broad array of socio-political matters.
Deepfake video will be just another tool for those who wish to shape critical mass support to their opinion about matters important to them.
As opinion substitutes for factual reporting on the front pages of news media and people retreat into their tribal domains of discourse, the problem will worsen.
As opinion substitutes for critical thinking about seemingly intractable social issues, the problem will worsen.
As opinion substitutes for actual accomplishment through demonstrated competence, the problem will worsen.
What's needed is judgement when confronted with "information" that is just too good to be true or too banal to be true. That means standards against which judgement can be rendered in an open, honest and transparent way. That means a lack of anonymity for both bad actors and for "leaders" in all fields.
11
The current state of mind of a very large number of people is that they will believe anything that they truly want to believe. Those that thought the Pelosi video was real, truly wanted to see something like that and wanted to accept it as real. This is true from the big news media outlets down to the individual messing on a home PC creating some fabricated video.
Bottom line is that for a growing number of people, truth and facts no longer matter. They just want to see, read, and hear what satisfies them. It is videos like the Pelosi one that helps fuel those desires. By the way, I am not just bashing those on the right as there are just as many on the left that feel the same way.
56
@Ellwood Nonnemacher This is what 19th-century American philosopher Charles Peirce, in labeling four ways in which people establish their beliefs, called "the method of tenacity." Peirce thought that this method "will be unable to hold its ground in practice. The social impulse is against it. The man who adopts it will find that other men think differently from him, and it will be apt to occur to him, in some saner moment, that their opinions are quite as good as his own, and this will shake his confidence in his belief. " How unfortunate that Peirce has turned out to be wrong.
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As long as digital media allows anyone to put anything up at any time, this will happen. But how could the enormous amount of content be monitored? Seems impossible. The only solution is to not believe any of it.
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The bottom line is that Facebook, youtube, Google, Microsoft and Apple have a small interest in distributing the truth and a large interest in being the sole source of your content. Marketing is everything and marketing presents us with fantasy. We've been subjected to fake views in tv advertising for decades. Why would anyone believe a video or a photo without knowing its source?
Oh, wait, millions of people do that everyday, wanting to have their opinion validated by whatever means.
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@Zeke27 You speak the truth. Throughout my career in digital product and advertising design, I've worked on numerous platforms and campaigns, many of which were for big Pharma, and much of which was congenial fairy floss. When Twitter emerged, over a decade ago, several colleagues and I agreed that, as opposed to the revolutionary soapbox it touted itself as, it was going to be the greatest gift to corporations and autocrats in modern history.
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Hasn't Jimmy Kimmel been altering clips on his show for years? Yes, that's a comedy show and context matters. Still, the use of this technology is well-known at this point and I doubt that many take these kinds of clips seriously. I know that I did not.
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@Steve - It didn't start with Kimmel. Here's a clip from 2005 where Craig Ferguson does this with a George Bush speech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrEdjaJt9iY
He's obviously just using it for humorous effect, but in today's political world it could easily have been taken seriously.
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@JM That reminds me when NBC did an investigative report on GMC pick ups, the video had a truck burst into flames when a side collision occurred. GMC slowed the video down, it exposed NBC. NBC had flares rigged under the truck, the flares ignited just prior to impact. The flares started the fire.
@Jimd Is this a bogus tale?
It's been true for a while now, that no one should trust images. The old days in which a doctored photo actually looks like some took the head of one person and pasted it on another photo are long gone. Batboy photography is dead.
The biggest change is that the equipment, expertise and cost of creating from whole cloth is a lot lower now; the barrier to entry is not high. If Hollywood can digitally add scenes for an actor who died during production, surely that is a clue that faking can work.
Skepticism is a necessary tool of the trade - not for journalists, or not only for journalists - but for every one of us watching videos and looking at photos.
We are not at all skeptical right now;the amount of propaganda floating around is and being absorbed like oxygen is relentless.
One example that crossed my screen was a video shot of Anderson Cooper in waders and water up to his waist, filming a flood. A climate change denier posted a video which showed Cooper's crew in less than six inches of water a few feet away, claiming Cooper was in a ditch.
In truth, neither was filming accurate information. The crew was on an elevated roadway, and Cooper had chosen the deepest spot to make a more convincing video. The concept that both could just fake the whole thing from scratch is not a huge change - the propaganda value is the same, and neither image showed the truth.
The lesson? Don't believe what you see with your lying' eyes.
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@Cathy The lesson? Don't pass along bogus fake news from "a climate change denier".
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