Deepfakes Banned - Celebrity Porn, Machine Learning + Censorship
So it finally happened, the Deepfakes sub-reddit has been wiped away, and now comes a big debate about censorship, image rights & creativity surrounding user-generated pornography made with the help of machine learning algorithms.
For those that don’t know about Deepfakes, it is a new phenomenon of home-made pornography that splices celebrities faces onto porn actresses.
It started off as the slightly creepy hobby of one Reddit user - r/deepfakes - who posted some convincing videos of female celebrities such as Daisy Ridley, Maisie Williams and Taylor Swift getting a good seeing to.
It quickly evolved, with a whole community springing up and trying their hand. There is now even user-friendly app that has been trained using machine learning techniques. Basically, it takes image sets of celebrities faces and superimposes them over porn clips to create a fake video. Popular targets include Gal Gadot, Jessica Alba and Emma Watson. Somewhat suprisingly, Nicholas Cage also features heavily, but in a non- pornographic setting, appearing in many movies where you would not expect to see him!
If you want to dive a bit deeper into the history behind this, and read about the use and implications of Deepfakes, then I reccomend this Motherboard article
Despite the early stage of this tech, some very convincing and realistic video have already been created, and this raises some interesting ethical and social implications. If you thought fake news was a problem, this will herald a whole new era, where the line between reality and fantasy gets increasingly blurred and difficult to distinguish.
Celebrity porn has been around for decades, but it was never that believable. Now it actually is, and the backlash over the involuntary use of one’s image is just getting started. Pornhub, Twitter, Gfycat and Reddit, who were the main platforms for sharing this material, have pulled the plug. There is talk on the forums where the Deepfake community gathers about relocating to dubious hosts like Voat (link to new Deepfakes forum - Explicit Content) and 4Chan.
I wonder how Steemit or dTube would cope with such content? The censorship resistant qualities make it an ideal platform for this, but there are certainly legal and ethical considerations when hosting and sharing such content. The videos are realistic enough to fall under the same laws governing revenge porn and defamation, and it won't be long before the creator of such content is litigated against.
On the other hand, it is a form of fantasy and creativity, and for as long pretty celebrities have been around people have been imagining them in dirty situations. Is this just the next logical step in a trend I remember from school - cutting out a celebs face from a magazine and gluing it over some smut?! Once the internet finds a new hobby, its very hard to stop, and I have feeling this is just the beginning…
Yeah, this definitely goes against some privacy, integrity and legal use of likeness issues for me. Obviously, technology is going to push the boundaries of what is acceptable but I have a hard time with this use case in particular.
I don't think anybody should have to put with this unless they choose to be involved. Thats on both sides: the model and the grafted face.
Deeper legal implications beyond the initial abuse exist as well. Falsified record of occurrences, potentially going as far as felonies or other courtroom level issues. We'll never be able to put this back into the box but it seems like equal efforts should be made to develop technology that helps to authenticate video as legitimate now too.
Right now its still possible to spot the fakes, and people are very open about what they are doing, but I agree that now the Pandora's box has been opened, we could see some very misleading m..aterial as the tech develops..
Now it looks fake, and it's easy to notice that something is wrong - but it's just a matter of time.
I saw a lot of shitstorms in comment sections under the photos faked in PS. Because people just believed what they see. Usually even medium which was publishing fake was not aware that they are spreading lies.
So now you can't believe photos & screenshots.
With this AI powered fake videos which I expect to improve results quickly, and technology (we already have it, Adobe has shown some time ago their Project VoCo in 2016) that can fake voice ... we are doomed, there will be nothing you can really trust.
Glad to hear that because it was becoming embarrassing to many celebrities because they are role models to their fans.
Its certainly very difficult to control one's image once you are in the public eye. Celebrities work hard to present themselves in the best possible way to the outside world and their fans, and this development massively undermines it.
It should be banned on platforms where pornography per se isn't allowed (of course), but this very case is a VERY GOOD showcase of technology and no they shouldn't have done it
To be honest I didn't knew this was a thing, although it doesn't surprise me at all that it do exist.
I don't know if banning will do it, the one's who like to watch will always find a way to do so. Videos in the future is although an alarming issue, can definitely hit hard on an individual level. A perk of banning it on the big platforms might be the increased level of difficulty to actually access the material, perhaps preventing the large majority from watching the photos or videos.
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People will always find away to watch things, and the community that creates these is pretty strong it seems. They have already jumped to another uncensored forum, and are churning out more videos. As you rightly mention, the ban from mainstream outlets delegitimizes Deepfakes somewhat, and certainly limits its audience.
I will definitely be keeping an eye on this tech, as it could be quite disruptive to a variety of industries!
You can't stop people from manipulating things, they just want an audience so if they don't get attention they will disappear into the darkness they live in. Some people look at the car wreck and some drive by eyes on the road. Free choice for the most part is a good thing.
Wow Finally !!!
Great Post
Resteemed
Upvoted
nice post
nooooo.... there go my wildest dreams :(