9 ms·

It seems like fake video can be handled the same way we handle fake text. We're just not used to doing that yet. Anyone can write an article and sign it "Barac

It seems like fake video can be handled the same way we handle fake text. We're just not used to doing that yet. Anyone can write an article and sign it "Barack Obama," and post it online somewhere. Not many folks will fall for it. Most people understand how easy it is just write someone else's name down, so they look for provenance to help decide what is real. An article by "Barack Obama" on the Wall Street Journal website is going to be believed much more readily than an article by "Barack Obama" on some random blog. The same thing will happen with video. Naked video files, found at random places on the Internet, will generally not be believed until they're authenticated by some trustworthy source. This already happens with "amazing" web videos; they attract "this is fake!" comments unless they're vetted and vouched for by (for example) a news service.

ajross 9y ago
> Anyone can write an article and sign it "Barack Obama," and post it online somewhere. Not many folks will fall for it. That's just stunningly naive. Imagine if Pizzagate or some other such nonsense was accompanied by a video of Podesta mumbling something about sex slaves. Fake News is a a real thing even without video corroboration. > Naked video files, found at random places on the Internet, You honestly think Breitbart of FOX wouldn't have run that in a heartbeat?
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  How many people believe Pizzagate is real? Shall we litigate the exact numerical definition of "not many?"--which is what I said, not "none."
  - lkbm 9y ago
    > How many people believe Pizzagate is real? That's a question that made me want an answer. It seems that, as of 2016, it may have been a lot: > Among the questions asked by pollsters was whether respondents believed that leaked emails stolen from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager and published by WikiLeaks prior to the Nov. 8 election “contained code words for pedophilia, human trafficking and satanic ritual abuse — what some people refer to as ‘Pizzagate.’ “ > ... > Specifically, 9 percent of registered Republicans who responded to the question said the allegations were “definitely true,” coupled with 40 percent of Republicans casting the claim as “probably true.”[0] A different December 2016 poll[1] also seems to put "yes"/"definitely" at it at 14%[1] with a lot of "maybes". Given the margins in US Presidential elections, it seems like the answer is "enough to matter". (Not that I think PizzaGate turned anyone from voting for Clinton or to voting for Trump, but fake news stories probably swayed a lot of voters overall.) [0] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/28/pizzagate-theory-believed-by-nearly-half-of-republ/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/28/pizzagate-t... [1] https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/PPP_Release_National_120916.pdf https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...
    - opportune 9y ago
      We must never forget that half of voters are even dumber than the average voter
      - lightbyte 9y ago
        That's not how averages work. If 9 people have an IQ of 100 and 1 has an IQ of 10, the average is 91. 9/10 people are still above that.
        philwelch 9y ago
        “Average” can mean “median”. Also, human IQ is distributed in such a way that the mean is approximately also the median, which, by definition of IQ, is 100.
        danieltillett 9y ago
        IQ is just a measure of intelligence mapped back on to a standard distribution with a mean of 100 and SD of 15. The mean equals the median of a standard distribution by definition. The reality is if you measured absolute intelligence that it would not be a standard distribution (there are more people at the bottom than expected), but it would be close. The reason why is that intelligence is the result of tens of thousands of independent factors (mostly genes).
        xtracerx 9y ago
        It does if IQ is a bell curve by definition, and it is.
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      A few thoughts here. First, the difference between the two surveys is probably because they asked very different questions. YouGov's question doesn't actually ask if Comet Pizza was a front for a sex ring, or if Clinton was involved in same. It only asks whether leaked email from Clinton staffers contained code words on the topic. It's still not something I think is true, but it appears that "yes" means "yes the memo with those code words existed" and "probably" means "the email probably existed and probably its wording was code for this stuff". Public Policy Polling asked about Clinton and the pizzeria being connected to a real ring, and consequently saw more 'no's. Second, this looks like a Lizardman Constant thing. For those unfamiliar, PPP polls find that ~10% of Americans say lizardmen might be running the planet. Which means that any weird opinion showing up in polls may well get 10% just from indifference, trolling, or lunacy. On the same poll, 5% of Obama supporters answered that yes, Obama was the anti-Christ. And here, 5% of Clinton supporters said that yes, she was involved in a child sex ring. If those people were sincere with both answers, I have some serious questions for them. All of which is to say that this sort of polling produces nutty results no matter what you aim it at. The most interesting part to me is honestly the uncertainty numbers, which seem high enough to be 'real' answers. I could buy that we've reached a point where large swaths of electorate are willing to say "shit, anything's possible these days". http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-...
  - nl 9y ago
    A truly shocking number. I saw a number of around 20% of Florida voters right after the 2016 election. Of course I can't find it now. But there are plenty on HN who thought (think?) it is real. Read the threads and weep: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13076863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13076863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13432291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13432291 Edit: yes, apparently still think it is real. You may need to turn on "show dead": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16407737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16407737
- fooblitzky 9y ago
  snowwrestler is right though, the real power of the fake videos stems from the immense trust we have that a digital video (or photo) portrays the truth - I believe they can usually be used as evidence in court? Perhaps it's a time for a renaissance of film? Or a service that detects doctoring, like Snopes for video (I imagine these AI video doctors probably leave some detectable characteristics in their pixel manipulations).
  - thatguy0900 9y ago
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQrzcwsGYy8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQrzcwsGYy8 captain disalusion is a YouTube person laity who debunks viral videos, not the kind of bulk or subject matter you're looking for.he breaks down what to look for in fake videos, though.
- artursapek 9y ago
  No matter how much you disagree with FOX, it's in their best interest to make damn sure they never print "fake text" or play "fake videos" on their platforms.
  - floatrock 9y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?q=fox+news+misleading+graphs https://www.google.com/search?q=fox+news+misleading+graphs
    - artursapek 9y ago
      I don't watch cable news or even have cable to begin with, nor do I like FOX. And these are fucking hilarious. But they're not quite as bad as a completely fabricated video or quote of somebody like Obama.
kneel 9y ago
>It seems like fake video can be handled the same way we handle fake text. We're just not used to doing that yet. What happens when someone synthesizes fake anchors in fake news segments and posts them on fb/twitter? You're severely underestimating how news propagates.
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  I think we're talking about different things. You're asking what happens today. I agree with you that audiences are not yet equipped with the proper skepticism for fake video involving real, unwitting participants. I'm talking about the long-term implications in society. We treat video as more trustworthy today, but I think that can (and will, I'm sure) change. I think it already is changing for those amazing "WOW" social videos like the whale landing on the kayaker, etc.
jpfed 9y ago
Here's "Barack Obama" giving a thumbs-up to repealing net neutrality: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1051157755251 https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1051157755251
philwelch 9y ago
"The problem with quotes found on the internet is that they are often not true." --Abraham Lincoln
- Intermernet 9y ago
  I think you meant: "The problem with mis-quotes found on the internet is that they are often true." --Oscar Wilde
jnwatson 9y ago
The point of the article was that, while one might be skeptical at first, the provenance of data is forgotten faster than the data itself. The emotional impact of a video will be remembered long after it was discovered to be fake.
- jessriedel 9y ago
  You can say the same thing about text.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    It happens on Twitter often- the first tweet gets 50k RTs and the corrected/retraction tweet hardly circulates at all.

ajross 9y ago

> Anyone can write an article and sign it "Barack Obama," and post it online somewhere. Not many folks will fall for it. That's just stunningly naive. Imagine if Pizzagate or some other such nonsense was accompanied by a video of Podesta mumbling something about sex slaves. Fake News is a a real thing even without video corroboration. > Naked video files, found at random places on the Internet, You honestly think Breitbart of FOX wouldn't have run that in a heartbeat?

snowwrestler 9y ago
How many people believe Pizzagate is real? Shall we litigate the exact numerical definition of "not many?"--which is what I said, not "none."
- lkbm 9y ago
  > How many people believe Pizzagate is real? That's a question that made me want an answer. It seems that, as of 2016, it may have been a lot: > Among the questions asked by pollsters was whether respondents believed that leaked emails stolen from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager and published by WikiLeaks prior to the Nov. 8 election “contained code words for pedophilia, human trafficking and satanic ritual abuse — what some people refer to as ‘Pizzagate.’ “ > ... > Specifically, 9 percent of registered Republicans who responded to the question said the allegations were “definitely true,” coupled with 40 percent of Republicans casting the claim as “probably true.”[0] A different December 2016 poll[1] also seems to put "yes"/"definitely" at it at 14%[1] with a lot of "maybes". Given the margins in US Presidential elections, it seems like the answer is "enough to matter". (Not that I think PizzaGate turned anyone from voting for Clinton or to voting for Trump, but fake news stories probably swayed a lot of voters overall.) [0] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/28/pizzagate-theory-believed-by-nearly-half-of-republ/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/28/pizzagate-t... [1] https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/PPP_Release_National_120916.pdf https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...
  - opportune 9y ago
    We must never forget that half of voters are even dumber than the average voter
    - lightbyte 9y ago
      That's not how averages work. If 9 people have an IQ of 100 and 1 has an IQ of 10, the average is 91. 9/10 people are still above that.
      - philwelch 9y ago
        “Average” can mean “median”. Also, human IQ is distributed in such a way that the mean is approximately also the median, which, by definition of IQ, is 100.
        danieltillett 9y ago
        IQ is just a measure of intelligence mapped back on to a standard distribution with a mean of 100 and SD of 15. The mean equals the median of a standard distribution by definition. The reality is if you measured absolute intelligence that it would not be a standard distribution (there are more people at the bottom than expected), but it would be close. The reason why is that intelligence is the result of tens of thousands of independent factors (mostly genes).
      - xtracerx 9y ago
        It does if IQ is a bell curve by definition, and it is.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    A few thoughts here. First, the difference between the two surveys is probably because they asked very different questions. YouGov's question doesn't actually ask if Comet Pizza was a front for a sex ring, or if Clinton was involved in same. It only asks whether leaked email from Clinton staffers contained code words on the topic. It's still not something I think is true, but it appears that "yes" means "yes the memo with those code words existed" and "probably" means "the email probably existed and probably its wording was code for this stuff". Public Policy Polling asked about Clinton and the pizzeria being connected to a real ring, and consequently saw more 'no's. Second, this looks like a Lizardman Constant thing. For those unfamiliar, PPP polls find that ~10% of Americans say lizardmen might be running the planet. Which means that any weird opinion showing up in polls may well get 10% just from indifference, trolling, or lunacy. On the same poll, 5% of Obama supporters answered that yes, Obama was the anti-Christ. And here, 5% of Clinton supporters said that yes, she was involved in a child sex ring. If those people were sincere with both answers, I have some serious questions for them. All of which is to say that this sort of polling produces nutty results no matter what you aim it at. The most interesting part to me is honestly the uncertainty numbers, which seem high enough to be 'real' answers. I could buy that we've reached a point where large swaths of electorate are willing to say "shit, anything's possible these days". http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-...
- nl 9y ago
  A truly shocking number. I saw a number of around 20% of Florida voters right after the 2016 election. Of course I can't find it now. But there are plenty on HN who thought (think?) it is real. Read the threads and weep: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13076863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13076863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13432291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13432291 Edit: yes, apparently still think it is real. You may need to turn on "show dead": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16407737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16407737
fooblitzky 9y ago
snowwrestler is right though, the real power of the fake videos stems from the immense trust we have that a digital video (or photo) portrays the truth - I believe they can usually be used as evidence in court? Perhaps it's a time for a renaissance of film? Or a service that detects doctoring, like Snopes for video (I imagine these AI video doctors probably leave some detectable characteristics in their pixel manipulations).
- thatguy0900 9y ago
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQrzcwsGYy8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQrzcwsGYy8 captain disalusion is a YouTube person laity who debunks viral videos, not the kind of bulk or subject matter you're looking for.he breaks down what to look for in fake videos, though.
artursapek 9y ago
No matter how much you disagree with FOX, it's in their best interest to make damn sure they never print "fake text" or play "fake videos" on their platforms.
- floatrock 9y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=fox+news+misleading+graphs https://www.google.com/search?q=fox+news+misleading+graphs
  - artursapek 9y ago
    I don't watch cable news or even have cable to begin with, nor do I like FOX. And these are fucking hilarious. But they're not quite as bad as a completely fabricated video or quote of somebody like Obama.

kneel 9y ago

>It seems like fake video can be handled the same way we handle fake text. We're just not used to doing that yet. What happens when someone synthesizes fake anchors in fake news segments and posts them on fb/twitter? You're severely underestimating how news propagates.

snowwrestler 9y ago
I think we're talking about different things. You're asking what happens today. I agree with you that audiences are not yet equipped with the proper skepticism for fake video involving real, unwitting participants. I'm talking about the long-term implications in society. We treat video as more trustworthy today, but I think that can (and will, I'm sure) change. I think it already is changing for those amazing "WOW" social videos like the whale landing on the kayaker, etc.

jpfed 9y ago

Here's "Barack Obama" giving a thumbs-up to repealing net neutrality: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1051157755251 https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1051157755251

philwelch 9y ago

"The problem with quotes found on the internet is that they are often not true." --Abraham Lincoln

Intermernet 9y ago
I think you meant: "The problem with mis-quotes found on the internet is that they are often true." --Oscar Wilde

jnwatson 9y ago

The point of the article was that, while one might be skeptical at first, the provenance of data is forgotten faster than the data itself. The emotional impact of a video will be remembered long after it was discovered to be fake.

jessriedel 9y ago
You can say the same thing about text.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  It happens on Twitter often- the first tweet gets 50k RTs and the corrected/retraction tweet hardly circulates at all.