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Tom Hanks says that’s not him selling dental insurance in Instagram ads
- pndy 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37733491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37733491
- skilled 3y agoThe actual submission that had discussion was this one, Tom Hanks says that’s not him selling dental insurance in Instagram ads (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731670) (84 comments)
- midasuni 3y agoWhy aren’t advertising platforms like Facebook and google held liable for the adverts they put out?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoSection 230?
- richbell 3y agoSection 230 protects them from being held liable for content published by users. I don't think it would apply to advertisements that they are publishing on the site in exchange for money, but I'm not a lawyer.
- fsckboy 3y agowhat you call "users" are actually the product. The "users" of google's services are the advertisers.
- richbell 3y agoSure, but that's irrelevant to the matter being discussed.
- adrianmonk 3y agoUsually "you are the product" is a snarky, low-effort comment, but this particular case seems like the rare situation where it actually is directly relevant. If you run a self-service advertising system, then don't advertisers count as users, and don't their ads count as third-party content that the system operator isn't liable for? They may not be your service's only users, and people may not like ads, and ads have a commercial purpose, and advertisers pay for them, but I don't think Section 230 cares about any of those things.
- fsckboy 3y ago"you need to live in a tall building to be able to see who else lives in tall buildings" thank you for recognizing the connection I was making, you are a gentleperson and a scholar.
- bastawhiz 3y agoI suspect it doesn't matter whether they were being paid. Section 230, as best as I can read it, doesn't say anything about whether there's any exchange of value. And at least IMO, what would the expectation be? That Facebook investigates every single ad to make sure that nobody in them is impersonating someone else? How would you do that? To what extent does Facebook need to fact check all of the details of all of the ads across its whole platform? That's exactly the sort of hassle that 230 was intended to prevent the need for in the first place.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago> How would you do that? Either figure it out or don't do it?
- bastawhiz 3y agoI mean how would anyone do it? Can you tell AI and humans apart with no error? How could you allow any advertising online if any person could be deep faked and you were liable? What if it was just the text "I'm Bill Murray and I use Goodyear tires." Are you going to ask Bill Murray? Are you going to take a signed affidavit? Are you going to ban ads with people and opinions in them? I hate advertising and I hate Facebook, but I think there's really nothing the platform can do to stop fake ads because—especially as deep fakes improve—there's nothing that any platform can do as an intermediary to practically prevent them. That doesn't mean the advertisers can't be held liable (and they should). It's just wild to me to think that the intermediary should also be liable simply because they accepted money.
- midasuni 3y ago> How would you do that? Same way that TV stations and magazines do.
- bastawhiz 3y agoYou're assuming they do.
- crooked-v 3y agoWhat would the liability even be in this case? We don't expect anyone that shows ads to comprehensively screen those ads for non-obvious lies (such as in this case, "I have the rights to use the likeness of Tom Hanks for this ad").
- richbell 3y agoI think it's reasonable for platforms to be held to a basic standard of due diligence, especially with repeat offenders. YouTube has been promoting the exact same financial scam (Tessler AI investor created by Elon Musk) for years. The fraudsters haven't even bothered to change the video — there is ignorance, and then there is negligence. If platforms aren't liable for their advertisements in some respect, there's a direct financial incentive for them to look the other way.
- klabb3 3y agoSomething something ads are free speech!!
- Barrin92 3y agowe probably should given that Facebook, unlike with user content, takes a direct cut of a transaction. Seems to me like the incentives are completely out of whack if Facebook can profit from illegal content on their platform. Is it too much to ask that Facebook vets the content of advertisers they enter into direct business with? Facebook should take a loss on this, how else are they encouraged to keep this off the site?
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y agoThey have a responsibility to police issues once they’ve been raised though. What if your likeness was used in an Instagram add that significantly harmed your image or ability to earn income? Edit: but just because you’re big and have automated most of your business, doesn’t mean you should be able to claim ignorance. If I build a robot that shoots enemy combatants and it walks around shooting civilians, I can’t just go ‘oh well auditing these things automatically is hard so I guess it’ll just have to work that way’.
- vinyl7 3y agoWhen you're a tv network or radio station with only a handful of advertisers...it's easy to police. When you're Facebook and Google, who are willing to take money from anyone and everyone...they have to deal with likely tens of thousands of both advertisers and false reports....eventually the scale is too large to handle. Once things get that big...you kinda just have to yolo it and only worry about the big fires.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y agoWait, so your argument is because they don't care who they take money from, they shouldn't be responsible for validating that the ads are legit? That's ludicrous.
- vinyl7 3y agoI'm not saying they shouldn't be responsible. I'm saying that it's not feasible for them to be responsible. Unless they're willing to restrict who they take money from...but that's not how it works in american capitalism where numbers must always be going up because otherwise you're a dead company.
- AdieuToLogic 3y ago> When you're Facebook and Google, who are willing to take money from anyone and everyone... Therein lies the problem.
- voisin 3y agoThey should allow for DMCA takedown requests like sites that inadvertently have pirated content or YouTube with background music.
- kinnth 3y agoThey should be held liable. Just like a TV ad needs to be reviewed, vetted and is ultimately monitored and people can be fined for missrepresentation, why is social media which is not streaming video content any different?
- capableweb 3y agoI'm guessing these platforms will claim that the ads are "user generated content" and therefore they should be able to only post-review content posted and not be liable for anything, rather than pre-review and be liable when stuff slips through.
- FridgeSeal 3y agoAd industry people will tell you that the scale is “simply too large” and “how could we possibly?”. These are deterrences from reality, and if we were forced to take a close look at a large majority of online advertising we would plainly see that it ranges from the outright sketchy, to borderline lying and certainly user-harassing. They worry that if too much scrutiny were applied, they might actually face some consequences for their actions and we might reevaluate their position as arbiters of “what’s viable” on the internet.
- Yeul 3y agoWebsites that take their reputation seriously do vet their online ads. Facebook just isn't one of those I guess.
- spondylosaurus 3y agoThere are legitimately billions of ads served every day. How do we ensure that nothing falls through the cracks?
- bobthepanda 3y agoIs billions of poorly moderated ads a good thing?
- fullshark 3y agoCause technology outraces regulation.
- ChatGTP 3y agoIf Meta wanted too, they could do something about this...we have the labeling technology. What a policing nightmare we've created...
- PlunderBunny 3y agoI can't read the words 'dental plan' without hearing it in the voice of Lenny from the Simpsons.
- b112 3y agoLisa needs braces!
- jareklupinski 3y agoDental plan!
- hijinks 3y agohow do i know that's not a deep fake of Tom Hanks saying it wasn't him so real Tom Hanks can sell more dental insurance?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- klabb3 3y agoNext article: Journalists duped by Tom Hanks deep fake hoax renouncing association with dental ad.
- calmworm 3y agoavclub.com is unusable and unreadable on mobile. Ads, just ads. Scroll scroll scroll, more ads. Nope. “Funny” though cause it’s an ad-ridden article about ads!
- c420 3y agoMobile Firefox w/ uBlock Origin is giving me an ad free experience. (I still find AVClub unusable due to bad/LLM generated content though)
- replwoacause 3y agoYou aren’t kidding. That website is a total piece of shit.
- _trampeltier 3y agoSince the commercial is for a product you have to pay, I think there is no way you they can say the training data (movies) are used under fair use.
- zirgs 3y agoWhat about movie trailers and other promo material? Why shouldn't I train AI on something that they shove in my face every time I go to the cinema?
- dagmx 3y agoRegardless of training data or AI, they don’t have rights to his likeness.
- _trampeltier 3y agoOf course not, but until now, everybody use public data for AI training and just say it's fair use.
- breadwinner 3y agoThis article has frames from the AI ad: https://ts2.space/en/tom-hanks-warns-fans-about-fake-video-promoting-dental-plan-2/ https://ts2.space/en/tom-hanks-warns-fans-about-fake-video-p...
- schemescape 3y agoThat first frame is deep in the uncanny valley!
- jncfhnb 3y agoWait… what the heck is this? This is very clearly not a deep fake. This looks like an oddly (or perhaps stylistically) rendered 3D model. Or perhaps a, still stylistic, image generation.
- IAmGraydon 3y agoI’m pretty sure they did an AI face replacement on real video. I agree, it does look strange.
- jncfhnb 3y agoI don’t think so. Those tend to look photorealistic but wrong. This looks clearly “rendered”. Like it had material properties on the skin. Edit: well it could be a face replacement over a video but not a deep fake one
- tamimio 3y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
- fnordpiglet 3y agoGiven the quality of of SDXL generated imagery there’s no uncanny valley, other than the creepy 8 finger hands. This has to be intentional stylistic renderings.
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- calmworm 3y agoMy account was banned from FB ads for unknown reasons, and when I was finally able to reach a person they could not shed the slightest bit of light on it, for an ad that FB, themselves, generated and said “here’s some free ad credits, would you like to try it?” and I agreed … so I’m at a complete loss as to how these ads and many many others get through.
- ggm 3y agoThe land of the lawsuit should surely have a price-point where it's worth Hank's money to invest in lawyers time, to sue the living bejesus out of anyone in this ad supply chain.
- __loam 3y agoIt should help that using someone's likeness like this without their knowledge or consent is already illegal in a lot of jurisdictions.
- pedalpete 3y agoThis is a real problem, but I feel we've almost already solved this via SSL. Can't we do a similar thing where the actor/artist/whoever digitally signs the media they are in, the platform which is showing the media can then confirm the rights to the person. Let's say Tom Hanks wanted to sell his likeness, that shouldn't stop him, he would just need to sign any media which uses it. I'm sure somebody is working on this already, but who?
- richbell 3y agoRequiring digital signatures is the first step in the alleged conspiracy to censor AI (and the Internet as a whole). This is corny, but it summarizes the idea quite well. https://youtu.be/-gGLvg0n-uY https://youtu.be/-gGLvg0n-uY
- sp332 3y agoSo security footage of a celebrity doing something bad would not be allowed if they refuse to digitally sign off?
- pedalpete 3y agoGood point, but that isn't a commercial use, it isn't an attempt to subvert the viewer. In that instance, it is up to the police (or whoever has jurisdiction) to prove it was the celebrity. No different from today really.
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- karaterobot 3y ago> This, of course, is the kind of thing that striking SAG-AFTRA actors are trying to get in their new contract with the AMPTP, since it would be horrible and gross if a major studio released Dental Plan: The Movie with an AI Tom Hanks in the lead, but the fact that it’s not a movie studio doing this is proof that we all deserve some kind of AI protection. I'm not sure what point they are making with this run-on sentence. Fortunately, it's already against the law to use someone's likeness in this way without their permission.
- jncfhnb 3y agoThe sag aftra thing is about demanding that permission as a pre req to do any work.
- bobthepanda 3y agoThe current SAG strike is in relation to strictly defining what studios can do with AI. The original proposal from the studios was to allow scanning likenesses of background actors in perpetuity, for a day’s wages, and then being able to use it at will without royalties. Which is a pretty good reason why they voted to strike.
- bluedays 3y agoOff topic but everyone has been looking old af to me lately. Tom Hanks is no exception. I think Covid aged everyone very quickly.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoI saw an ad yesterday with AI generated Musk, Gates, Branson, Bezos, and a couple others.
- AdieuToLogic 3y agoWho didn't see this coming? At some point the software industry, of which I am actively a part, has to take responsibility for what we make. Hiding behind section 230 and/or "just following orders" (ahem, "requirements") no longer cuts it. Professional ethics are demanded from accountants, lawyers, doctors, and physical engineering disciplines. There are real consequences in those professions when some fail to uphold the covenant expected of them. Software engineering can no longer be solely about revenue without accountability.
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoSoftware engineering is such a broad field, and spans work from making a web app to building mission-critical software for a nuclear power plant. "Professional ethics" are demanded for all the professions you described because there is no "web dev" version of an accountant or doctor - their work, when done improperly, can damage human lives. The thing is, software engineering in regulated fields already is regulated. A degree is required to work on software for many medical device companies, regulations are in place to ensure code is written safely. Could all of this be improved? Sure. But your last sentence is just not true for regulated industry. If you amended your comment to specifically address social media companies, then yes I agree.
- bjourne 3y agoIt's interesting how advertisers are exempted from the crusade against fake news. Frothing talking heads like Alex Jones gets deplatformed while YouTube ads continue to inform me that "50,000 Ukrainian women want to date me". It's important that I don't get wrong information about covid vaccines so I don't get sick, but luring gambling addicts to casino sites is no problem.
- IAmGraydon 3y agoWhat’s the name of the company that’s selling this “insurance”? They should be sued into bankruptcy.
- mikece 3y agoIt doesn't matter if Hanks consents if he has an agreement with an agent who can give consent for his image and likeness on his behalf. This is like the whiney musicians who say "I don't approve of the use of my music for {insert excuse here}." Go read your contracts: you signed away a lot of your rights in exchange for money! Now cash your royalty checks and shut the hell up!
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoIt doesn't matter if a dev consents if he has used an open source license that gives away his code on his behalf. This is like whiny open-source devs who say "I don't approve of the use of my code for {insert excuse here}." Go read your contracts: you signed away a lot of your rights in exchange for money! Now cash your salary checks and shut the hell up!
- lifeisstillgood 3y agoI guess it was always on the wall, but it's there now.