Read on Twitter
THREAD: (1/9) Millions of people encountered a Deepfake for the first time during the Last Dance on ESPN when State Farm ran a commercial using similar tech. While harmless the clip points to a much darker future. (1/x) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/business/media/espn-kenny-mayne-state-farm-commercial.html?smid=tw-share">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/2...
(2/9) If it’s impossible to quickly disprove a video clip then people will choose whether or not to believe it based on their own pre-held beliefs. Because of this, malign deepfakes have the ability to chip away at any shared set of facts.
(3/9) Any video (or audio for that matter) that challenges my pre-held notions becomes a deepfake and any one that confirms them has to be real. If you you disagree with me, my "proof" becomes a deepfake.
(4/9) Don& #39;t believe me? Or think I& #39;m being overdramatic? Think of how hard it is now to have a conversation with a family member who doesn& #39;t trust the "so called Mainstream Media". Now add into that conversation "irrefutable evidence". Thanksgiving just got a whole lote more fun
(5/9) And that moves us to one of the central problems deepfakes pose. Publicizing them doesn& #39;t alleviate the problem, it worsens it. The more people who know about deepfakes, the more likely people are to claim something is a deepfake with little or no evidence.
(6/9) This applies to politicians too. The "Liar& #39;s Dividend" (a phrase coined by @daniellecitron and @BobbyChesney) describes a situation where a politician claims incriminating audio or video is a deepfake even when it& #39;s not.
(7/9) Their supporters latch onto the statement as proof the audio or video isn& #39;t real, and the politician dodges a disaster as it takes weeks or months to determine whether the video was a deepfake or not. By then the narrative has changed and the world has moved on.
(8/9) So, while the State Farm/ESPN commercial was fun, it moves us one step closer to a future where we don& #39;t know whether that video we saw on twitter was real or not (if were not there already).
(9/9) Want more information about deepfakes, what they are, how we got here, potential solutions (spoiler: there aren& #39;t and won& #39;t be any time soon), and what we do next? Check out this (slightly dated) paper below. (Ya, some shameless self promotion here) https://jsis.washington.edu/news/deep-fakes-fake-news-and-what-comes-next/">https://jsis.washington.edu/news/deep...
