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Github is banning copies of 'deepfakes' porn app DeepNude
GitHub is banning code from DeepNude, the app that used AI to create fake nude pictures of women. Motherboard, which first reported on DeepNude last month, confirmed that the Microsoft-owned software development platform won't allow DeepNude projects. GitHub told Motherboard that the code violated its rules against "sexually obscene content," and it's removed multiple repositories, including one that was officially run by DeepNude's creator.
DeepNude was originally a paid app that created nonconsensual nude pictures of women using technology similar to AI "deepfakes." The development team shut it down after Motherboard's report, saying that "the probability that people will misuse it is too high." However, as we noted last week, copies of the app were still accessible online — including on GitHub.
Late that week, the DeepNude team followed suit by uploading the core algorithm (but not the actual app interface) to the platform. "The reverse engineering of the app was already on GitHub. It no longer makes sense to hide the source code," wrote the team on a now-deleted page. "DeepNude uses an interesting method to solve a typical AI problem, so it could be useful for researchers and developers working in other fields such as fashion, cinema, and visual effects."
Also at The Register, Vice, and Fossbytes.
Previously: "Deep Nude" App Removed By Developers After Brouhaha
Related: AI-Generated Fake Celebrity Porn Craze "Blowing Up" on Reddit
Discord Takes Down "Deepfakes" Channel, Citing Policy Against "Revenge Porn"
My Struggle With Deepfakes
Deep Fakes Advance to Only Needing a Single Two Dimensional Photograph
(Score: 5, Insightful) by http on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:31AM (30 children)
You say "virtue signal" like it's a bad thing.
Github sees that this is 100% Horrible Shit Waiting To Happen and says, "we're not OK with being associated with this". No, they can't necessarily stop it on their own, but at least they're aware that continuing to host it makes them a small, but non-zero, part of the problem. I guess you have a problem with that, for what reason I don't know.
Not that it matters, a future host can just generate a press conference with Nat Friedman yelling "I'ma gonna hump you on the photocopier, Satya! Yeeha!"
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:43AM (25 children)
The question for the opensource community of "do we need to concern ourselves with how the technology we create is used" has been discussed ad nauseum for as long as I've been a part of it. The consensus for a very long time was: don't worry about it. People do what people do. I agree with this: technology is generally neutral and the way it is used itself is the problem. Does Linus loose sleep at night because evil people doing evil things are using his kernel to hurt people? Someone is somewhere for sure. I see that Github hosts SQLite which as a fun fact was created to help kill people with missiles but also works really well as a database for your phone app.
So when Github gets their panties in a bunch over what someone might do with DeepNude forks it seems contrary to my entire opensource experience. Github does purport to be pro opensource doesn't it?
I'm not surprised that Github doesn't want to be associated with it but I think we can call them out for not being opensource like here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:56AM (5 children)
Really poor analogy. Linus didn't design the Linux kernel to harm people, nor is it a tool whose primary applications are likely to be nefarious.
The developers in this case realized what they had created, how its primary applications are likely to be bad 99.99% of the time, and they did want to disclaim any association with it.
This isn't some generic image manipulation application. It's specifically designed to make people appear nude when they aren't. Given that large numbers of people are sensitive about their bodies and don't want to appear nude without their permission, it seems most times this application is used, it will run afoul of the subjects' wishes in the images.
Is there no such application that you'd find offensive enough that a developer should "lose sleep over it"? Again, this application's target is very specific. If someone created an application to insert someone's image into old film footage, that might be interesting (and more akin to your Linus analogy). If, instead, someone created an application that is SOLELY designed to dress a person up in a Nazi uniform and make it appear as if they were in old film footage in the concentration camps in WWII beating and killing Jews, I think we might rightly ask what the application is for and whether it is something we want to support. And I'd certainly hope that Linus would lose sleep at night if he were directly involved in creating an app like that.
To me, this has nothing to do with "open source." Open source is about freedom to see code, often to modify said code freely, etc. Debates about usage of applications and their ethics may sometimes be related, but they seem to be a quite different issue. Whether a torrent client is open source is a completely separate issue from legal and moral aspects of how torrents should be used.
(And note: I share the concern that removing this software from common repositories is only in some sense delaying the inevitable. But I can completely understand Github's stance here.)
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday July 11 2019, @05:32AM (4 children)
I've been saying that this is special purpose software made for the exact use case of putting a head you want to see on another body you want to see. That part is not lost on me.
I think the primary use case would be watching the porn yourself. Only a very small fraction of people will ever share that. This isn't very much different from cutting pictures out of playboys to match up with heads off other photographs. It's not a thing I do but if someone does that in their home I don't care. I also don't care if someone watches a DeepFake in their own house. That doesn't harm anyone except possibly the individual themselves depending on how you feel about pornography. The software has been convicted of being obscene itself because some people might do some obscene stuff with it.
The very special use case software here has an ML engine with usages beyond tit replacement. We are losing value here - hopefully someone will make use of it from an archive somewhere else if that value is high.
I can't think of one no. I'm sure it exists but when I see stuff I don't agree with I usually just move my eyes away from it.
Even that doesn't bug me. I wouldn't be a part of making it because that's not my style and I find no redeeming qualities at all with it. Would I ban it from something I hosted? I'm not sure. Probably not of my own volition. Depending on how much I like money I might cave to financial pressure like Github did if I needed to. I would call that financial interests corrupting opensource though.
I also thought removing weboob from Debian was an epic waste of energy on Debian's part. The people advocating for it's removal acted like the software itself was some kind of burden on the Debian project and they cited needing to prep it for release as a waste of time because the software is gross and just doesn't belong here. That's a false concern though: packages are maintained by the package maintainer that volunteers and no one can make a debian dev do anything. If a package has open bugs before the release can be made the package is not included. It cost the Debian project more energy to discuss removing it than it took to just leave it.
I don't really understand this recent censorship push in opensource.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:57PM (3 children)
It is basically the same reason that bigoted conservatives don't like being called Nazis or even just alt-right. This same weird stance you have with open source is quite similar to the free speech zealots. Nuance and context don't matter to such people and thus reality appesrs very strange to them.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday July 11 2019, @05:15PM (2 children)
If your definition of Nazi only requires a person to be bigoted they might not like the utter abuse of the word and not the labeling of themselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @04:39PM (1 child)
Look at you, white knight of the neo-nazis. Milo is that you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 13 2019, @07:59AM
WW2 is over and She Lost.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:58AM (16 children)
How come?
I mean:
1. "don't worry about it. People do what people do."
2. GitHub/MS is people
should follow into "Don't worry about it. GitHub/MS does what GitHub/MS does".
Go find another place for your code if you believe in what you developed and that's that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday July 11 2019, @05:36AM (15 children)
The push for censorship is a new phenomenon in open source. That's why it seems contrary.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:10AM (14 children)
You will have to demonstrate in an acceptable manner that this is a push for censorship for me to accept that's a valid reason to worry.
Does the fact that I refused to use any Linux distro with a systemd init means I'm trying to censor systemd or I'm engaging in a "censorship of open source"?
All I'm saying is: 'No systemd on my computers" - how's this different from GitHub saying "No DeepNude on our computers?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:23AM (5 children)
Well, for starters, they've positioned themselves as an open hosting provider. If you'd positioned yourself as an any-init-system-goes place, and then banned systemd, your point would have some validity.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:35AM (4 children)
I can't blame you for not reading the Acceptable use [github.com] section** beforehand, neither do I, but doing it would have stopped you short from thinking "GitHub == open hosting provider" or, indeed, that an "open hosting provider" refrain from imposing any limits.
---
** or, is it "sexion" in the context?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday July 11 2019, @07:16AM (3 children)
None of the restrictions in the AUP would appear to apply in this case. Code of academic interest was posted in a repo. That is not obscene. Well, it shouldn't be. Heaven knows there's a backlash against science among many in the upper echelons...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @07:37AM (2 children)
Are you sure? Speaking for myself, I'd like a citation.
All I could find: the origin of TFA is actually Motherboard/Vice [vice.com] (the others just cite that one).
They say
Unfortunately, that and the rest of TFA say nothing on the line of "there were deleted repos that didn't have any other content except code of academic interest ".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday July 11 2019, @07:51AM (1 child)
When I read a sentence like that it leaves the impression that the github repo was being used to store images of pornography not a collection of words and symbols that can produce pornographic content. So lets see what M-W thinks of obscene:
disgusting to the senses
I don't think that one quite cuts it though I think 'disgusting to mind' would work.
abhorrent to morality or virtue; specifically : designed to incite to lust or depravity
Now we are starting to get pretty damn warm.
containing or being language regarded as taboo in polite usage
Ring that bell!
repulsive by reason of crass disregard of moral or ethical principles
Another bingo here.
so excessive as to be offensive
Really depends on who you are for that one I think. In fact all of that really depends on who you are, your moral code, and the culture you were brought up in. But it's Github's show, they get to decide what is and is not obscene, and there is no appeal. That's that.
I still think it's contrary to opensource principles.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @08:07AM
But I don't see GitHub as ever making a promise to uphold opensource principles above anything else.
It's a commercial entity, their foremost duty is to their shareholders.
Whenever expectations are not met, one will need to critically examine both sides. It may be a failure to deliver to what was agreed is expected, but it well may be a case of overinflated expectations based on unsubstantiated assumptions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:39AM (7 children)
I doubt severely that I can find any acceptable way to demonstrate to you that there is a push for censorship.
Lets go check the definitions of censorship that I already provided to you because your existing definition was absolutely wrong.
So the answer is no. Do us a favor and go shout at people who say systemd is good, go deface systemd websites by removing the content and replacing it with SysV init documentation in tandem with shell documentation, and hack Debian and yank it out of the repos. Then you would be censoring.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:47AM (6 children)
I have a hard time imagining MS did shout about "DeepNude" or defaced any other websites related to DeepNude, etc...
It simply denied those projects to use GitHub as a collaboration platform, nothing more.
Since GitHub is privately owned by MS and comes with conditions attached for using it [github.com], MS was not even abusing its position.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday July 11 2019, @07:08AM (5 children)
No, that's what you have to do if you want to be a censor. You asked if you were censoring if you don't use systemd. I said no then provided an example of what it takes for you to censor systemd: you interrupt the delivery of information related to it. Github doesn't have to go shouting at people because they can delete the project and interrupt the delivery of information related to DeepNude.
If you take a poster off a wall because you don't agree with it you are censoring. If you don't use systemd because it sucks you just have good taste.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @07:20AM (4 children)
:) (on the "good taste")
Seriously though, if I take a poster off my wall. I'm just exercising my right as the owner of the wall to let/deny the people use my wall the way I see fit. Even more so when I informed everyone in advance [github.com] this may happen.
The fact this interrupts one point from which your information flows towards others? Yes, it happens, but that is secondary to my right as an owner of the wall. It doesn't make it censorship, because I'm only taking a single poster and I'm not stopping you to place posters on other walls and neither I'm taking down the posters from other walls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday July 11 2019, @07:33AM (3 children)
This entire discussion reminds me of when conservatives absolutely freak out with the terms positive and negative liberty because their chosen form of liberty is labeled as "negative" so fuck those guys they are making judgement about my politics!
Do you think that censorship is bad?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @07:44AM (2 children)
I think the common sense should push many people in a common-sense type of self-censoring grafted on a "live and let live" attitude.
In the older days, these were called something like "respect" and "the traditions of the place". Rules that were not laws, but social conventions that made the community work with less frictions.
I feel sometimes we (as humanity) are losing more than we are gaining by breaking them and letting them behind us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday July 11 2019, @09:29AM (1 child)
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. What conventions are changing? Is the community the opensource community?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @09:48PM
Self-censoring in everyday life. Called 'civilized behaviour' otherwise. Dependent on good proportion on the values of people that make your social circle (open source included, if one is involved in open source)
The values/behaviour of the people around.
---
Look, i was trying to answer between the lines to your
Now, to put it bluntly, the brief answer is 'Yes, I think censorship is bad, but I also think there are things much worse than censorship, even in so-called civilized world'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:23AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:04PM
Death and violence are ok and good.
Nudity and sex are not.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:35AM
The complete uselessness was of removing it was my point. If they feel the need to make meaningless and ineffective gestures, they're free to do so. I'm not going to give them any virtue points for a worthless gesture though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:24PM (1 child)
Github should ban image processing software like photoshop that could be used to alter images.
Github should ban tools that could be used to commit copyright infringement.
Github should ban tools that could be used for
penetration testinghacking.Because all of that is "bad stuff".
Home Depot should ban tools that could be used to hurt someone, such as hammers and screwdrivers. They should also ban tools used for burglary such as crowbars.
We must put an end to the bad ways in which tools can be used!
Think of the children!
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:58PM
Home Depot or if you are on a budget even Harbor Freight has all the tools and auxiliary supplies you need inside it to make your own AR-15! In fact go look at drill presses on homedepot.com and you'll find people talking about it in the reviews. How do you make an AR-15 using a hardware store? Youtube will help you.
Given how much Youtube hates guns I'm amazed they allow this kind of content to exist on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @05:52PM
they are just cowardly whores like all big corps. fuck them.