8 ms·

Elon Musk Shares Manipulated Harris Video, in Seeming Violation of X's Policies

91 points by hn1986 2y ago

hn1986 2y ago
The billionaire owner of the social media platform X reposted a video that mimics Vice President Kamala Harris’s voice, without disclosing that it had been altered
infotainment 2y ago
Don’t worry, I’m sure in a day or two the policies will be rewritten with an awkwardly shoehorned-in exception.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
two_handfuls 2y ago
To the surprise of absolutely no one who had been paying attention.
- belter 2y ago
  Elon...When your bank account is full but your mind isn't...Even with billions, some still seek out the comfort of conspiracy memes.
  - Zigurd 2y ago
    I blame the decline of model trains and stamp collecting, which is what old guys used to do before the internet. If you wanted to dabble in conspiracy theories you had to subscribe to mimeograph newsletters and buy Edgar Cayce books. Now you can get a deluge of that stuff by setting YouTube to auto-play.
cowboylowrez 2y ago
Elon is ridiculous, and so is twitter. Its banned where I work tho, because the ownership desires normal internet.
beeman 2y ago
https://archive.is/kLDjM https://archive.is/kLDjM
jerojero 2y ago
It is his platform after all, he can post whatever he wants. On the other hand, this is one of the reasons why the platform is really becoming unusable for me. Not to mention everyday i'm "followed" by 5-10 bots. And I get recommended a lot of posts about right wing posters that I have no interest in seeing. I mean, ofc, I don't have to use the fyp but I do wonder if there's manipulation of the algorithm going on. I don't follow any accounts that are right-wing aligned.
- hn1986 2y ago
  It's against the Twitter terms of service. secondly, "The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits fraudulent misrepresentation of federal candidates or political parties, but the law, written in 1971, is ambiguous when it comes to modern technologies such as artificial intelligence." the algorithm has changed to push more right wing accounts. https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/search/?q=right+wing&type=link&cId=8c0a7418-5d68-4b29-b258-21480e7b6ac7&iId=f60a1032-3e80-46c2-9771-11aa87a8250e https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/search/?q=right+wing&type=l...
- Gigachad 2y ago
  I’m in Australia and literally only follow or interact with furries in my city. And yet most of my Twitter feed is American political bait, and I get followed by 3 bots a day. It’s funny to see all the posts on here saying “Elon was right, you can fire everyone and nothing happens”. Like have any of these people tried using Twitter in the last year? It’s completely deteriorated.
  - robbiep 2y ago
    We have furries? I thought they were a made up subculture. Cool
    - defrost 2y ago
      Since 1965 at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_B._Bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_B._Bear ( not to be confused with that other head to toe costumed alternative: https://wankerpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Humphrey_B._Flaubert https://wankerpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Humphrey_B._Flaubert )
davda 2y ago
This is not unexpected, but I think he's reaching bit too far to use it on presidential nominee. It could very well kick off strict AI regulation whether Harris is elected or not, which would be amusing to see given he's trying to get the Tesla shareholders to invest in his very own xAI. AOC's deepfake AI porn tri-partisan bill had no trouble passing the senate.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lenkite 2y ago
[flagged]
- lolc 2y ago
  While I have seen neither video, is a Hitler with the face of somebody else going to confuse anyone about the nature of the video? Depicting somebody in handcuffs in a realistic setting can be taken as real so yea that needs to be called out as a fabrication when posting. And altering the voice in a video to say something else, sure that may be funny but if it takes too much context to understand the alteration, it needs to be made clear. > I wish HN stuck to plain tech. Some people hope Musk would.
tim333 2y ago
The post / video: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1816974609637417112 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1816974609637417112 While it doesn't say 'satire' or not real it's kind of obviously satire to me at any rate within the first few seconds. Guess this stuff can be a grey area especially if it's more subtle. By the way the original video post had "Kamala Harris Campaign Ad PARODY" written on it but Musk removed that when he reposted. (https://x.com/MrReaganUSA/status/1816826660089733492 https://x.com/MrReaganUSA/status/1816826660089733492)
SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
What an absolute reach. Somebody is going to watch this and think it's a real Harris campaign ad? Get a grip on reality, nobody with a working brain will.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- breadwinner 2y ago
  Given that a large percentage of the populace does not have a working brain (some 70% of Republicans still believe the election was stolen), the manipulated video is harmful.
  - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
    What a crock. While that certainly takes a willingness to deny basic reality, it's a whole different kettle of fish from the kind of disjunct that would be required to believe many of these lines are from an actual Harris campaign ad. Either way, it's a total reach to claim this is some kind of hypocrisy or breaking of the Twitter terms unless there's accompanying evidence that similarly obvious satire gets taken down routinely for violating that rule.
    - breadwinner 2y ago
      If someone has a "willingness to deny basic reality" that's rock bottom. Such a person can absolutely believe these lines are from an actual campaign ad.
      - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
        OK, I don't grant you that believing partisan conspiracies is on the same level as having actual brain-damage levels of cogniti e impairment it would require to believe this was a real campaign ad, but even if I did, that honestly has nothing to do with whether people losing their minds about Musk's "hypocrisy" in this comment section are deranged or not.
skeledrew 2y ago
There is a "relatively simple"[0] solution to this issue of deepfakes. Anyone publishing content, particularly if there is incentive for manipulation, can get a Keyoxide[1] or other similar doip setup. Then they also sign and provider a hash of any content they publish with the associated key. There's a bit of challenge for binary content since those can't be compressed or optimized without breaking the hash, and many hosting platforms will make such changes. For that we need to advance perceptual hashing algos to the point where they only - and always - break on semantic differences. [0] Caveat being getting the solution to be seamless enough for the not-so-tech-inclined to have little problem using it. And for the general public to get into the habit of verifying content. [1] https://keyoxide.org/ https://keyoxide.org/

91 points by hn1986 2y ago

hn1986 2y ago

The billionaire owner of the social media platform X reposted a video that mimics Vice President Kamala Harris’s voice, without disclosing that it had been altered

infotainment 2y ago

Don’t worry, I’m sure in a day or two the policies will be rewritten with an awkwardly shoehorned-in exception.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

two_handfuls 2y ago

To the surprise of absolutely no one who had been paying attention.

belter 2y ago
Elon...When your bank account is full but your mind isn't...Even with billions, some still seek out the comfort of conspiracy memes.
- Zigurd 2y ago
  I blame the decline of model trains and stamp collecting, which is what old guys used to do before the internet. If you wanted to dabble in conspiracy theories you had to subscribe to mimeograph newsletters and buy Edgar Cayce books. Now you can get a deluge of that stuff by setting YouTube to auto-play.

cowboylowrez 2y ago

Elon is ridiculous, and so is twitter. Its banned where I work tho, because the ownership desires normal internet.

beeman 2y ago

https://archive.is/kLDjM https://archive.is/kLDjM

jerojero 2y ago

It is his platform after all, he can post whatever he wants. On the other hand, this is one of the reasons why the platform is really becoming unusable for me. Not to mention everyday i'm "followed" by 5-10 bots. And I get recommended a lot of posts about right wing posters that I have no interest in seeing. I mean, ofc, I don't have to use the fyp but I do wonder if there's manipulation of the algorithm going on. I don't follow any accounts that are right-wing aligned.

hn1986 2y ago
It's against the Twitter terms of service. secondly, "The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits fraudulent misrepresentation of federal candidates or political parties, but the law, written in 1971, is ambiguous when it comes to modern technologies such as artificial intelligence." the algorithm has changed to push more right wing accounts. https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/search/?q=right+wing&type=link&cId=8c0a7418-5d68-4b29-b258-21480e7b6ac7&iId=f60a1032-3e80-46c2-9771-11aa87a8250e https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/search/?q=right+wing&type=l...
Gigachad 2y ago
I’m in Australia and literally only follow or interact with furries in my city. And yet most of my Twitter feed is American political bait, and I get followed by 3 bots a day. It’s funny to see all the posts on here saying “Elon was right, you can fire everyone and nothing happens”. Like have any of these people tried using Twitter in the last year? It’s completely deteriorated.
- robbiep 2y ago
  We have furries? I thought they were a made up subculture. Cool
  - defrost 2y ago
    Since 1965 at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_B._Bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_B._Bear ( not to be confused with that other head to toe costumed alternative: https://wankerpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Humphrey_B._Flaubert https://wankerpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Humphrey_B._Flaubert )

davda 2y ago

This is not unexpected, but I think he's reaching bit too far to use it on presidential nominee. It could very well kick off strict AI regulation whether Harris is elected or not, which would be amusing to see given he's trying to get the Tesla shareholders to invest in his very own xAI. AOC's deepfake AI porn tri-partisan bill had no trouble passing the senate.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lenkite 2y ago

[flagged]

lolc 2y ago
While I have seen neither video, is a Hitler with the face of somebody else going to confuse anyone about the nature of the video? Depicting somebody in handcuffs in a realistic setting can be taken as real so yea that needs to be called out as a fabrication when posting. And altering the voice in a video to say something else, sure that may be funny but if it takes too much context to understand the alteration, it needs to be made clear. > I wish HN stuck to plain tech. Some people hope Musk would.

tim333 2y ago

The post / video: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1816974609637417112 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1816974609637417112 While it doesn't say 'satire' or not real it's kind of obviously satire to me at any rate within the first few seconds. Guess this stuff can be a grey area especially if it's more subtle. By the way the original video post had "Kamala Harris Campaign Ad PARODY" written on it but Musk removed that when he reposted. (https://x.com/MrReaganUSA/status/1816826660089733492 https://x.com/MrReaganUSA/status/1816826660089733492)

SuperNinKenDo 2y ago

What an absolute reach. Somebody is going to watch this and think it's a real Harris campaign ad? Get a grip on reality, nobody with a working brain will.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
breadwinner 2y ago
Given that a large percentage of the populace does not have a working brain (some 70% of Republicans still believe the election was stolen), the manipulated video is harmful.
- SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
  What a crock. While that certainly takes a willingness to deny basic reality, it's a whole different kettle of fish from the kind of disjunct that would be required to believe many of these lines are from an actual Harris campaign ad. Either way, it's a total reach to claim this is some kind of hypocrisy or breaking of the Twitter terms unless there's accompanying evidence that similarly obvious satire gets taken down routinely for violating that rule.
  - breadwinner 2y ago
    If someone has a "willingness to deny basic reality" that's rock bottom. Such a person can absolutely believe these lines are from an actual campaign ad.
    - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
      OK, I don't grant you that believing partisan conspiracies is on the same level as having actual brain-damage levels of cogniti e impairment it would require to believe this was a real campaign ad, but even if I did, that honestly has nothing to do with whether people losing their minds about Musk's "hypocrisy" in this comment section are deranged or not.

skeledrew 2y ago

There is a "relatively simple"[0] solution to this issue of deepfakes. Anyone publishing content, particularly if there is incentive for manipulation, can get a Keyoxide[1] or other similar doip setup. Then they also sign and provider a hash of any content they publish with the associated key. There's a bit of challenge for binary content since those can't be compressed or optimized without breaking the hash, and many hosting platforms will make such changes. For that we need to advance perceptual hashing algos to the point where they only - and always - break on semantic differences. [0] Caveat being getting the solution to be seamless enough for the not-so-tech-inclined to have little problem using it. And for the general public to get into the habit of verifying content. [1] https://keyoxide.org/ https://keyoxide.org/