4 ms·

We've had fake news and media for years. People wisen up, even if deep fakes come about reputable media outlets will call it out. If you want to do something m

We've had fake news and media for years. People wisen up, even if deep fakes come about reputable media outlets will call it out. If you want to do something more without hurting free-speech improve existing slander and defamation laws to specifically target deep fakes. Hold the platforms accountable the same way copyright has, its worked wonders.

tstrimple 7y ago
> We've had fake news and media for years. People wisen up I haven't seen much evidence of this. Now we've got a significant portion of the population who calls every news report that conflicts with their view of the world fake news and then turn around and consume media which has been measurably shown to be among the most inaccurate available. All of this behavior is supported by the President of the United States. When will people wisen up?
- afterburner 7y ago
  The time scale for wisening up is measuring in years, probably 5-10 years minimum, maybe more. People and societies take a while to clue in and adapt. It will happen though. Mass social media use is a relatively new thing. Deepfakes wont be any more challenging to deal with than the struggle for accurate information in the pre-TV, or even pre-print days. People will learn to look for reputable sources, and propaganda will keep trying to trick people in new ways.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    I don't see any evidence of this, at all. I see a large portion of the populace gleefully indulging in their own self delusion, even when the ability to verify or disprove content is so easily available. To the parent's point, "fake news" has just become a convenient word to shout when you don't want to hear or believe something.
- iamtheworstdev 7y ago
  Propaganda is as old as man. Manipulating people has existed for as long as someone has been able to profit from it. Implying that it is suddenly new because one politician embraced the conspiracy is very harmful to the idea of fighting it. The internet brought a few things into play that have made the issue more complicated. Primarily that information and false information can be made by anyone and spread at the speed of light. Secondarily, that more people can present themselves as experts because all you need is a website and not third party's validation. In only a few years we went from a researcher showing how he could manipulate a video to make it look like someone said something different than the actual transcript to the ability to fabricate entire scenes with deep fakes. Most people in the world don't even know this technology exists. If you think only some back woods Trump supporters will fall for this then you're definitely mistaken.
- BeetleB 7y ago
  >I haven't seen much evidence of this. Fake news isn't binary - it is a continuum. For many, fake news is merely an extension of misleading news which has existed for a long time (recent examples are things like the crowd level at the toppling of Saddam's statue). And to be frank, many of the alarmist 90's email chains (warnings about fake scams, etc) fall into the category of fake news. They're written like news articles and passed around, and are totally fabricated. It's just that today they have fancy looking web sites - but the concept is the same. Misleading news is as old as news itself. When I was a news junkie, I knew the effort it took to distinguish real news from misleading news - both coming from the same established news agency/company (be it NY Times or CNN or Fox News). The only difference now is that fake news sites tend to publish only fake stuff - the difference is merely a matter of degree. As much as it's annoying that people are calling everything fake news, I don't want to encourage people to go back to easily trusting traditional news sources - NY Times, etc. It's naive to think that people calling everything "fake news" is an artifact of Russia or Trump. There's been a very legitimate distrust of news organization for a long time, and all we're seeing is the lack of nuance in this distrust. Trump/Russia merely tapped an existing vein. Had they not, this level of distrust would have arisen soon anyway.
mtgx 7y ago
> Hold the platforms accountable the same way copyright has, its worked wonders. It has?! Citation needed.
- jakecopp 7y ago
  Try uploading an copyrighted song to YouTube or Vimeo (and maybe Facebook?). They made it work very well, too aggressively sometimes.
  - jaimex2 7y ago
    Exactly.
faissaloo 7y ago
>Hold the platforms accountable the same way copyright has, its worked wonders. You mean by creating a selectively enforced corporate hellscape?

tstrimple 7y ago

> We've had fake news and media for years. People wisen up I haven't seen much evidence of this. Now we've got a significant portion of the population who calls every news report that conflicts with their view of the world fake news and then turn around and consume media which has been measurably shown to be among the most inaccurate available. All of this behavior is supported by the President of the United States. When will people wisen up?

afterburner 7y ago
The time scale for wisening up is measuring in years, probably 5-10 years minimum, maybe more. People and societies take a while to clue in and adapt. It will happen though. Mass social media use is a relatively new thing. Deepfakes wont be any more challenging to deal with than the struggle for accurate information in the pre-TV, or even pre-print days. People will learn to look for reputable sources, and propaganda will keep trying to trick people in new ways.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  I don't see any evidence of this, at all. I see a large portion of the populace gleefully indulging in their own self delusion, even when the ability to verify or disprove content is so easily available. To the parent's point, "fake news" has just become a convenient word to shout when you don't want to hear or believe something.
iamtheworstdev 7y ago
Propaganda is as old as man. Manipulating people has existed for as long as someone has been able to profit from it. Implying that it is suddenly new because one politician embraced the conspiracy is very harmful to the idea of fighting it. The internet brought a few things into play that have made the issue more complicated. Primarily that information and false information can be made by anyone and spread at the speed of light. Secondarily, that more people can present themselves as experts because all you need is a website and not third party's validation. In only a few years we went from a researcher showing how he could manipulate a video to make it look like someone said something different than the actual transcript to the ability to fabricate entire scenes with deep fakes. Most people in the world don't even know this technology exists. If you think only some back woods Trump supporters will fall for this then you're definitely mistaken.
BeetleB 7y ago
>I haven't seen much evidence of this. Fake news isn't binary - it is a continuum. For many, fake news is merely an extension of misleading news which has existed for a long time (recent examples are things like the crowd level at the toppling of Saddam's statue). And to be frank, many of the alarmist 90's email chains (warnings about fake scams, etc) fall into the category of fake news. They're written like news articles and passed around, and are totally fabricated. It's just that today they have fancy looking web sites - but the concept is the same. Misleading news is as old as news itself. When I was a news junkie, I knew the effort it took to distinguish real news from misleading news - both coming from the same established news agency/company (be it NY Times or CNN or Fox News). The only difference now is that fake news sites tend to publish only fake stuff - the difference is merely a matter of degree. As much as it's annoying that people are calling everything fake news, I don't want to encourage people to go back to easily trusting traditional news sources - NY Times, etc. It's naive to think that people calling everything "fake news" is an artifact of Russia or Trump. There's been a very legitimate distrust of news organization for a long time, and all we're seeing is the lack of nuance in this distrust. Trump/Russia merely tapped an existing vein. Had they not, this level of distrust would have arisen soon anyway.

mtgx 7y ago

> Hold the platforms accountable the same way copyright has, its worked wonders. It has?! Citation needed.

jakecopp 7y ago
Try uploading an copyrighted song to YouTube or Vimeo (and maybe Facebook?). They made it work very well, too aggressively sometimes.
- jaimex2 7y ago
  Exactly.

faissaloo 7y ago

>Hold the platforms accountable the same way copyright has, its worked wonders. You mean by creating a selectively enforced corporate hellscape?