7 ms·

This feels like it has been true since forever, just with other media. A picture with a made up quote seems exactly as damaging. Good journalists will continue

This feels like it has been true since forever, just with other media. A picture with a made up quote seems exactly as damaging. Good journalists will continue vetting sources and unscrupulous TV personalities will continue showing whatever fits their narrative without vetting.

lmilcin 5y ago
It has been true only to a certain level. Photos can be faked and videos can be mislabeled, but as long as it happens it small enough number it is possible to have people point it out and make a fuss about it. This changes when individual people with no resources at all can make convincing fakes and wield it as a weapon to sow disinformation, to have it then picked up by "major" media, all information on the net becomes pretty useless.
- riffraff 5y ago
  Again, this was always true, we relied on news agencies and such to be gatekeepers of what is true. Sometimes a random video pops up and people believe it shows X and then it propagates but it's something completely different (e.g. people beating up immigrants on the streets in northern Italy -> traditional krampus celebrations; Junker drunk at some event -> Junker suffers from lombalgia; Berlusconi mimicing a sexual act on some woman -> it was a comedian skit; Britney Spears sex tape -> it's a random pornstar ...) People will learn to be doubtful of random internet videos just as they have learned to be doubtful of random internet articles. Or not, since they haven't yet, but it's not a qualitative change.
- Fricken 5y ago
  The majority of Covid disinformation was spread by 12 people with limited resources. They didn't need deepfakes. Deepfakes add nothing of substance to the liar's toolkit. It's easy to lie to people so long as you're saying things that validate their shitty emotions. Conversely, it's extremely hard to tell people the truth when it goes against their shitty emotions.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    Tangent, but: Emotions can't be shitty. You can miscalibrate your emotional responses to situations, much as you can sear your conscience. But the emotions themselves - the full range are valid human feelings, from fury to transcendent joy.
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      "valid" seems sort of weasel-wordy here.
      - NateEag 5y ago
        Okay, I'll phrase it more strongly: Emotions as such are good, from sorrow to rage to joy. Each one is a good response to some situations, as far as I can tell. Your emotional response can be misplaced, so that you experience an inappropriate emotional in some situations. As noted elsewhere in the thread, you can also be inspired by your emotions to inappropriate (and just terrible) behavior. The emotions themselves, though, are not shitty. Recognizing them and understanding where they're coming from can be tremendously helpful in aligning your actions with reality and your own values, and even in discovering what your own values are. I share this perspective not out of a sense of superiority but in the hope that it helps someone else avoid my mistakes.
        robertlagrant 5y ago
        I don't see the point in saying emotions are automatically good, but also inappropriate. This just seems like a segregation of two concepts that don't need separating. E.g. saying "I think people of type X are bad so I feel hatred towards them" is a good emotion but misplaced, vs is a bad emotion? I don't see the useful distinction.
        NateEag 5y ago
        People often try to eliminate emotions from their lives, whether some specific ones or all of them. It's called "repression" and it can really mess you up. I don't mean that emotional responses are automatically good - I mean that emotions, as abstract entities, are inherently good. I'm not so sure I'd call "hate" an emotion, so I'll try a different example. If I'm angry at someone because they told me I wrote a buffer overflow (and I actually did), that's an unreasonable and unhealthy response. The fact that I feel anger over it should impel me to introspection and working out why I'm angry over useful technical feedback. From there, I can move on to personal change so that I'm no longer inclined to be angry about good, helpful input. If I'm angry at someone because they sexually assaulted my wife, that's a healthy anger response. They've mistreated her horribly and my anger on her behalf should push me to protect her and seek justice. How exactly I act on that anger matters, though - physically intervening so they cannot continue to hurt my wife then calling the police would be good. Pulling out a pistol and shooting them would not. Does that clarify my thoughts at all?
- dahart 5y ago
  > It has been true only to a certain level. […] as long as it happens it small enough number it is possible to have people point it out and make a fuss about it. I think the opposite is true. This isn’t a historical perspective, you’re using logic to speculate. Historically speaking, there have been fakes that reached huge numbers of people, and they were more damaging then than they are today because they were more believable; the public had not yet conceived that photos could be faked, and it was not possible to see evidence of fakery. Today, everyone knows photos and videos can be faked. I don’t know of any deep fake videos yet that have tricked a large number of people or been used for political purposes. Maybe it has happened, I don’t know, do you know? But there have been lots of influential faked photos. Just Google a little to find hundreds of historical examples of famous and misleading doctored photos. (Lots of overlap in these lists, because some of the photos are famous). https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/history.pdf https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/history.pdf https://delmarwatsonphotos.com/photographs/famous-photographs/ https://delmarwatsonphotos.com/photographs/famous-photograph... https://www.quora.com/What-historical-photos-are-highly-misleading https://www.quora.com/What-historical-photos-are-highly-misl... https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-photos-history-2011-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-photos-history-2011-8 https://www.ranker.com/list/historic-images-that-were-retouched/stephanroget https://www.ranker.com/list/historic-images-that-were-retouc... https://www.ba-bamail.com/content.aspx?emailid=29607 https://www.ba-bamail.com/content.aspx?emailid=29607 https://www.pinterest.com/yosomono/faked-images-everyone-thinks-are-real/ https://www.pinterest.com/yosomono/faked-images-everyone-thi...
psychomugs 5y ago
Since the inception of photography, all photographs have been lies [1,2]. The only remedy is critical thinking and awareness and skepticism on the part of the recipients, which is being outpaced by the technology. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolyte_Bayard#Self_Portrait_as_a_Drowned_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolyte_Bayard#Self_Portrait... [2] https://i.redd.it/nh45pwigrhc21.jpg https://i.redd.it/nh45pwigrhc21.jpg

lmilcin 5y ago

It has been true only to a certain level. Photos can be faked and videos can be mislabeled, but as long as it happens it small enough number it is possible to have people point it out and make a fuss about it. This changes when individual people with no resources at all can make convincing fakes and wield it as a weapon to sow disinformation, to have it then picked up by "major" media, all information on the net becomes pretty useless.

riffraff 5y ago
Again, this was always true, we relied on news agencies and such to be gatekeepers of what is true. Sometimes a random video pops up and people believe it shows X and then it propagates but it's something completely different (e.g. people beating up immigrants on the streets in northern Italy -> traditional krampus celebrations; Junker drunk at some event -> Junker suffers from lombalgia; Berlusconi mimicing a sexual act on some woman -> it was a comedian skit; Britney Spears sex tape -> it's a random pornstar ...) People will learn to be doubtful of random internet videos just as they have learned to be doubtful of random internet articles. Or not, since they haven't yet, but it's not a qualitative change.
Fricken 5y ago
The majority of Covid disinformation was spread by 12 people with limited resources. They didn't need deepfakes. Deepfakes add nothing of substance to the liar's toolkit. It's easy to lie to people so long as you're saying things that validate their shitty emotions. Conversely, it's extremely hard to tell people the truth when it goes against their shitty emotions.
- NateEag 5y ago
  Tangent, but: Emotions can't be shitty. You can miscalibrate your emotional responses to situations, much as you can sear your conscience. But the emotions themselves - the full range are valid human feelings, from fury to transcendent joy.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    "valid" seems sort of weasel-wordy here.
    - NateEag 5y ago
      Okay, I'll phrase it more strongly: Emotions as such are good, from sorrow to rage to joy. Each one is a good response to some situations, as far as I can tell. Your emotional response can be misplaced, so that you experience an inappropriate emotional in some situations. As noted elsewhere in the thread, you can also be inspired by your emotions to inappropriate (and just terrible) behavior. The emotions themselves, though, are not shitty. Recognizing them and understanding where they're coming from can be tremendously helpful in aligning your actions with reality and your own values, and even in discovering what your own values are. I share this perspective not out of a sense of superiority but in the hope that it helps someone else avoid my mistakes.
      - robertlagrant 5y ago
        I don't see the point in saying emotions are automatically good, but also inappropriate. This just seems like a segregation of two concepts that don't need separating. E.g. saying "I think people of type X are bad so I feel hatred towards them" is a good emotion but misplaced, vs is a bad emotion? I don't see the useful distinction.
        NateEag 5y ago
        People often try to eliminate emotions from their lives, whether some specific ones or all of them. It's called "repression" and it can really mess you up. I don't mean that emotional responses are automatically good - I mean that emotions, as abstract entities, are inherently good. I'm not so sure I'd call "hate" an emotion, so I'll try a different example. If I'm angry at someone because they told me I wrote a buffer overflow (and I actually did), that's an unreasonable and unhealthy response. The fact that I feel anger over it should impel me to introspection and working out why I'm angry over useful technical feedback. From there, I can move on to personal change so that I'm no longer inclined to be angry about good, helpful input. If I'm angry at someone because they sexually assaulted my wife, that's a healthy anger response. They've mistreated her horribly and my anger on her behalf should push me to protect her and seek justice. How exactly I act on that anger matters, though - physically intervening so they cannot continue to hurt my wife then calling the police would be good. Pulling out a pistol and shooting them would not. Does that clarify my thoughts at all?
dahart 5y ago
> It has been true only to a certain level. […] as long as it happens it small enough number it is possible to have people point it out and make a fuss about it. I think the opposite is true. This isn’t a historical perspective, you’re using logic to speculate. Historically speaking, there have been fakes that reached huge numbers of people, and they were more damaging then than they are today because they were more believable; the public had not yet conceived that photos could be faked, and it was not possible to see evidence of fakery. Today, everyone knows photos and videos can be faked. I don’t know of any deep fake videos yet that have tricked a large number of people or been used for political purposes. Maybe it has happened, I don’t know, do you know? But there have been lots of influential faked photos. Just Google a little to find hundreds of historical examples of famous and misleading doctored photos. (Lots of overlap in these lists, because some of the photos are famous). https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/history.pdf https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/history.pdf https://delmarwatsonphotos.com/photographs/famous-photographs/ https://delmarwatsonphotos.com/photographs/famous-photograph... https://www.quora.com/What-historical-photos-are-highly-misleading https://www.quora.com/What-historical-photos-are-highly-misl... https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-photos-history-2011-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-photos-history-2011-8 https://www.ranker.com/list/historic-images-that-were-retouched/stephanroget https://www.ranker.com/list/historic-images-that-were-retouc... https://www.ba-bamail.com/content.aspx?emailid=29607 https://www.ba-bamail.com/content.aspx?emailid=29607 https://www.pinterest.com/yosomono/faked-images-everyone-thinks-are-real/ https://www.pinterest.com/yosomono/faked-images-everyone-thi...

psychomugs 5y ago

Since the inception of photography, all photographs have been lies [1,2]. The only remedy is critical thinking and awareness and skepticism on the part of the recipients, which is being outpaced by the technology. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolyte_Bayard#Self_Portrait_as_a_Drowned_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolyte_Bayard#Self_Portrait... [2] https://i.redd.it/nh45pwigrhc21.jpg https://i.redd.it/nh45pwigrhc21.jpg