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"Deep Fakes" in general seem to be already covered by existing libel laws, though that has some problems. Libel is generally a civil matter, and is extremely di

"Deep Fakes" in general seem to be already covered by existing libel laws, though that has some problems. Libel is generally a civil matter, and is extremely difficult to prosecute. There is precedent, even in the US, for criminal libel laws[0]. Perhaps following that path (combined with continued work on detection and defeat of the technology) would be preferable. Since libel and defamation are well-defined and have a long history of jurisprudence, many of the constitutional and legal issues which would have to be answered in opening a new avenue of speech restriction could be contained within the existing contexts. I'd even think leaving it in the civil arena would make sense until it became a problem worthy of criminalization. Legislating a matter before it arises is almost never a good idea, from either a prudential or principled standpoint. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/13/impersonating-someone-online-with-intent-to-injure-his-reputation-is-a-crime-in-new-york/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

Bartweiss 8y ago
Aside from the civil versus criminal distinction, it seems significant that this statute judges harm differently than libel laws. Libel/slander requires reputational damage to an individual, while this is about facilitating criminal/tortious conduct in general. That seems to cover some fairly significant non-libel cases, like knowingly creating a video for someone to use as an alibi. I agree that it still seems like premature legislation, though. Even from the viewpoint of a random programmer, it's both overbroad (this covers any video editing, not just 'deepfakes' as commonly understood) and incomplete (what happens when no recognizable people are represented, but an edit is still used to facilitate criminal action?) If doctored video becomes as believable as authentic video, it's going to be a major upheaval, returning us to a world where seeing isn't believing. Probably not completely; there will be an obvious market for hard-to-fake authentication, even in forms as simple as registering a video hash with a trusted source as soon as it's taken. But the departure from a world where a high-res video of an event is reliable proof is going to be a very big change, and I seriously doubt any law written today will productively adjust for it.

Bartweiss 8y ago

Aside from the civil versus criminal distinction, it seems significant that this statute judges harm differently than libel laws. Libel/slander requires reputational damage to an individual, while this is about facilitating criminal/tortious conduct in general. That seems to cover some fairly significant non-libel cases, like knowingly creating a video for someone to use as an alibi. I agree that it still seems like premature legislation, though. Even from the viewpoint of a random programmer, it's both overbroad (this covers any video editing, not just 'deepfakes' as commonly understood) and incomplete (what happens when no recognizable people are represented, but an edit is still used to facilitate criminal action?) If doctored video becomes as believable as authentic video, it's going to be a major upheaval, returning us to a world where seeing isn't believing. Probably not completely; there will be an obvious market for hard-to-fake authentication, even in forms as simple as registering a video hash with a trusted source as soon as it's taken. But the departure from a world where a high-res video of an event is reliable proof is going to be a very big change, and I seriously doubt any law written today will productively adjust for it.