Deepfake videos

[GhostlyGalleon]

This isn't necessarily "feminism" (or not only feminism, anyway), but you lot are my favourite, so I'm putting it here anyway.

All this stuff about deepfake videos... obviously, this is utter shite in terms of making revenge porn alongside all sorts of other dubious materials which (predominantly) men will want to make.

But, strangely perhaps, the thing that bothers me most about it is the call for laws against propagating/sharing deepfakes.

I just think that this will give anyone with a lot of power/money the ability to get away with whatever they like. An obvious example is the Epstein stuff. All you have to do is get something labelled a deepfake, and it's all OK. It's another way to get us to not believe our own eyes. What kind of evidence will actually be believed, if we can be told anything is a deepfake? I can't help but think this is just terrible for anyone who hopes that people who've done bad things will have to account for their actions.

Any thoughts, wise women?

There was a brief window of time when a photo of something was pretty convincing evidence that it happened, but no longer because of photoshop. Deep fakes mean that audio and video are no longer convincing evidence either. So in total, that's maybe 150 years where technology was good enough to provide good evidence about events but not good enough to fake it. Like our distant ancestors, we now have to rely on people instead.

Yes, I agree @17thEarlOfOxford. It feels like this just gives more power to the powerful. And means they can potentially get away with whatever the hell they like. What's the betting that "deepfake" comes up in cases like those of Epstein's associates?

I agree there's worrying implications from all angles on this. Laws against sharing deepfakes could easily be used against people sharing genuine footage that other parties wanted suppressed. Equally the potential damage to someone from an actual deepfake circulating is also of concern.

I'm not sure how far the technology has come on this yet, whether we are quite at the point something can be faked with no trail and no visible signs of tampering? I am fairly sure it won't be long though.

God, I hate tech but hadn't even considered stuff like this!

I don't think any woman should find themselves in a porn movie they never agreed to whether thats revenge porn fake porn. End of.