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posted by chromas on Tuesday May 05 2020, @01:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the fake-it-'til-you-break-it dept.

"If you were to ask me what the key risk in the 2020 election is, I would say it's not deepfakes," said Kathryn Harrison, the founder and CEO of the DeepTrust Alliance, a coalition fighting deepfakes and other kinds of digital disinformation (that is: intentional, malicious false info). "It's actually going to be a true video that will pop up in late October that we won't be able to prove [whether] it's true or false."

This is the bigger, more devious threat, what's known as the Liar's Dividend. The term, popular in deepfake-research circles, means the mere existence of deepfakes gives more credibility to denials. Essentially, deepfakes make it easier for candidates caught on tape to convince voters of their innocence -- even if they're guilty -- because people have learned they can't believe their eyes anymore.

[...] "I don't think anyone's going to see a piece of video content, real or fake, and suddenly change their vote on Election Day," said Clint Watts, distinguished research fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who testified to Congress last year about deepfakes and national security. "Trying to convince people Joe Biden touches people too much or whatever….I don't see how people's opinions can be really shaped in this media environment with that."

What worries him more are deepfakes that undermine election integrity -- like an authoritative figure reporting misinformation about turnout, polling site disruptions or voting machines changing your ballot.

Another worry: Deepfakes could destabilize the vote on US soil by causing havoc at a US outpost abroad. Imagine a fake that triggers an attack like the one on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012, which became a political flashpoint in the US. State actors like China or Russia, for example, could find an effective strategy in forged videos that endanger US soldiers or US diplomats, particularly in war-torn regions or countries ruled by a dictator, where populations are already struggling to separate truth from propaganda and rumor.

[...] No matter what form an election deepfake tries to take, the time to be on highest alert is right before you cast your vote.

"If it happens 48 hours out of the Election Day," Watts said, "we may not have a chance to fix it."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2020, @02:26AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2020, @02:26AM (#990545)

    Yeah, do you remember who was governor of Arkansas when all that coke was passing through? A little bit of blackmail, and suddenly he's president for eight years! Pretty cool, huh?

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday May 05 2020, @02:55AM (4 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday May 05 2020, @02:55AM (#990553)

    Of course! He was selling it out of the basement of that pizza joint.

    • (Score: 1) by DECbot on Tuesday May 05 2020, @01:54PM

      by DECbot (832) on Tuesday May 05 2020, @01:54PM (#990672) Journal

      Hold on, you've got to keep the story strait. It was a friend's pizza shop and he and Hillary would come to visit the children. The really story is how Bill & Hill's friends and former colleagues love them so much that they either drop dead, find a murderer, or kill themselves.

      --
      cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2020, @07:05PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2020, @07:05PM (#990824)

      read "Bush, Clinton and the CIA", you dumb fuck.

      • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday May 05 2020, @10:33PM (1 child)

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday May 05 2020, @10:33PM (#990889)

        Why? There are plenty of more interesting, and funnier conspiracy theories that that one.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2020, @03:49AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2020, @03:49AM (#990965)

          I'm like you. I only believe official conspiracy theories. I mean, really! They're professionals! It's their job!