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Taylor Swift deepfakes spark calls in Congress for new legislation:
Deepfakes use artificial intelligence (AI) to make a video of someone by manipulating their face or body. A study in 2023 found that there has been a 550% rise in the creation of doctored images since 2019, fuelled by the emergence of AI.
US Representative Joe Morelle called the spread of the pictures "appalling".
In a statement, X said it was "actively removing" the images and taking "appropriate actions" against the accounts involved in spreading them.
It added: "We're closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed, and the content is removed." While many of the images appear to have been removed at the time of publication, one photo of Swift was viewed a reported 47 million times before being taken down.
[...] There are currently no federal laws against the sharing or creation of deepfake images, though there have been moves at state level to tackle the issue.
In the UK, the sharing of deepfake pornography became illegal as part of its Online Safety Act in 2023.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Sunday January 28 2024, @12:36PM (23 children)
What is it about this Swift-girl?
She's a billionaire entrepreneur [forbes.com] with a massive following through her very successful entertainment business. The massive following would be enough to generate a bit of attention in congress, but no action from that alone. However, being an actual billionaire means that congress members will at least listen to her since most of their professional life is spent sniffing for and chasing after money. Adding new, write-only laws provide more publicity than enforcing the relevant existing ones, such as those covering the Right of Publicity. Since Swift is first and foremost an astute businesswoman, apparently surrounded by her sharp legal and public relations teams, it is also quite probable that her likeness is a trademark, also, to be specific.
What is interesting is the timing. During the latedt mid terms, she seems to have tested the idea of speaking up on endorsing candidates. There was push back from the expected interests and she backed way off. However, I don't think she stopped and I expect that the test was preparation for the 2024 cycle. So a slew of deepfakes will do several things besides tie up her public relations and legal teams, preventing them for preparing for November. It has now sown the seeds of doubt as to the believability of anything she does off stage now, thus massively lessening the potential impact of any statements she might make. It has also gotten words and phrases associated with her banned and down ranked in social control media [variety.com], which also has a negative impact on any authentic statements she might be making.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Sunday January 28 2024, @01:19PM (3 children)
Gotcha. So if I want a legislation to happen, I have to fuck up Swift's life with whatever I want banned.
Thanks for clarification. That should streamline the process considerably.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday January 28 2024, @01:24PM
That would be one approach, but what seems to be going on is a pre-emptive strike so that her team has less time to prepare for October or November. And as mentioned, there are already laws covering the Right to Publicity, but pre-existing laws have never slowed down making redundant and overly specific new ones.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2024, @01:46PM (1 child)
Why I Sued Taylor Swift: and How I Became Falsely Known as Frivolous, Litigious and Crazy [goodreads.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2024, @04:14PM
I think what's most glaring about the above is a complete lack of any grounds for a lawsuit. Nobody is legally obligated to pay this guy's work any attention.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday January 28 2024, @04:12PM (10 children)
I wouldn't call her an 'entrepreneur'; I'd call her a marketer... almost a cult leader.
She's not anything better than some of the pop singers 'before' her: she just has marketed herself better.
That, and stupid people with no musical taste will be followers of anyone who markets to them best.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2024, @04:16PM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday January 28 2024, @05:21PM (1 child)
‘It’s all sound and fury, signifying nothing’
Marketing.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday January 28 2024, @06:22PM
As well as, in a lot of cases, legislation [schlockmercenary.com].
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by canopic jug on Sunday January 28 2024, @04:34PM (6 children)
Marketing is a big part of it, but she is first and foremost running a large business. A lot of bands figured out the necessity of running the show as a business as the prerequisite for success by the 1970s. That lesson was lost for a few decades as the distribution scene changed all around, but Swift seems to have figured it out fairly early on and run with it. I admire her business acumen and her ability to get paid as an entertainer but not the sounds she makes.
As for the stupid people with no musical taste, you have all the young people with their catastrophic ear damage added to the sad situation of only possessing tinny ear buds or tinny "smart" phones for the sum of their acoustical experience. The result is that they are going to listen to sounds which have been optimized for their tin ears listening to those tinny speakers. The few pennies they may have go towards replacing the cracked "smart" phone which they dropped on the ground or in the toilet. There is no money for a nice high fidelity sound system [vintag.es] at all, should they on the off chance even be aware of that possibility.
Then on top of all that, the subset of sounds which has been presented to them by the streaming services is that which is additionally optimized for the short term profit of said streaming service. It's a perfect storm for establishing bad musical taste as the hallmark of two generations.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2024, @05:19PM (5 children)
Tchah. Young people nowadays.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday January 29 2024, @03:51AM (4 children)
Meh. It's kids of every generation: Technology makes the sound, whether directly from an acoustic guitar or via a homemade tube amp or via a drum machine + autotune. You'd have ended up with a worse sounding music culture back in the transistor radio days if live music had been unavailable to youth then, like it is today, because back then music would have been only available over transistor AM radios and even earbuds are a step up from that. The availability of live music back then saved things, especially local bands and venues.
Sure today the kids (or their parents) can shell out big bucks and drive for an hour or two to cram into a packed arena to see (and maybe even hear) a Ticketmaster-endorsed entertainment troupe. That's not the same as a short ride to a local venue among a choice of local venues to hear a local band. That era is long gone, transistor radios are in museums, and in most towns and cities, live music is a thing of the past, especially since the SARS-CoV-2 pandemics. What you're left with are highly compress, lossy file formats over tinny ear buds and tinny "smart" phones. The music which is left has to fit into the frequency range and dynamic range those cheap ass devices support. Thus music which sounds like it's played over earbuds, regardless.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday January 29 2024, @05:37AM (3 children)
I'm sure my parents felt the same when me and my friends got on a train, or when one of us got old enough to drive, to pay the big bucks to go and see Howard Jones, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk etc. So what has really changed in that regard?
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday January 29 2024, @06:14AM (2 children)
So what has really changed in that regard?
For that generation? Lossless FM transmission by local radio stations are two major changes. With FM, the sound was pretty good even on an average receiver, not so much with earbuds or "smart" phones' tinny speakers carrying highly compressed, lossy streams. Also, with the long gone local radio stations the music selection reflected regional tastes, more or less. In that way, local or regional audiences don't really exist any more because content is now pushed down from a national HQ. Nor do local radio stations even exist any more. Nearly every last one in the US, for example, is owned by one of five national companies which push programming top down rather than providing locally produced programming. Furthermore, the kids don't listen to radio, that is for old people. Instead they are on Spotify or worse, and Spotify is far more centralized with a far wider range than any of the media companies pushing content to FM any more.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday January 29 2024, @06:38AM (1 child)
So you are mainly upset about that some kind of perceived choice has disappeared? I'm fairly certain record labels and promoters etc previously more or less set the stage for what was played on ye old Radio and other local sources of music to. There was probably not a lot of free choice even if you had some local DJ on the air. That freedom was probably an illusion.
In that regard all that has changed is that the corporate overlords don't even bother to try and hide anymore -- if they are Spotify or Sony, Warner, Universal, Capitol or Columbia or whatever gigantic music conglomerate there is and was I'm not sure it really matters in the end. We all got fed Top-of-the-Pops on the radio or telly. Talent might have counted for a tiny sliver more back then but it was a managed audience.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday February 03 2024, @06:46AM
A 5,000 visitor concert has quite a different vibe than a "concert" with 54,000 [qz.com] attendees. And a 100-person audience, in an appropriately sized venue, is more different still. The smaller or larger you go on that spectrum, the vaster the difference in the experience. In the larger venues only a small percentage will even be close enough to see the performers.
There is also the matter of ticket prices [artsjournal.com]. Long gone are the days you could pay low single digits for general admission seating. Now its low triple digit prices, not counting scalpers.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2024, @04:29PM
Maybe for her legal team. This is great stuff for her PR team.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2024, @05:25PM
> slew of deepfakes will do several things besides tie up her public relations and legal teams
Or perhaps it's just a horny Swifty somewhere uploading some naughty pics? To go with the Emma Watson "deepfakes" (i.e. slightly better than terribly photoshopped) and Keira Knightley and pretty much any other pretty actress from the last decade or two...
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday January 28 2024, @09:00PM (3 children)
Is this the point where she jumps the shark?
IMO, entertainers have no business giving their opinion on politics. From a purely commercial point of view, it halves their potential audience (there is, of course, the entertainer that specifically sets out to cater to a particular political affiliation or cause, but Swift is not that). But, more importantly, most actors/musicians/performers who spout off about politics have done very little research themselves and are often armed with just enough information to be dangerous. Their cult of personality leads them to believe (often correctly) that the public wants to hear their opinion on everything, regardless of whether it's thoughtfully researched, or just shooting from the hip (see: The View).
An astute businessperson should 'stick to their lane' and avoid getting involved in things that will impact their bottom line.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday January 29 2024, @09:22AM
An astute businessperson should 'stick to their lane' and avoid getting involved in things that will impact their bottom line.
Maybe she has decided to cash out.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday January 29 2024, @09:33PM (1 child)
"IMO, entertainers have no business giving their opinion on politics."
From the Beatles to Skinny Puppy, from Pink Floyd to Megadeth, from The Clash to Creedence Clearwater Revival, Pussy Riot to Crosy Stills Nash and Young... tons of great and important music is political in nature.
Not all of us can listen exclusively to musical pablum like "Peggy Sue" or "What does the fox say?" , but hey, you do you!
Also,
"From a purely commercial point of view, it halves their potential audience"
Really? Are you so insecure in your own ideas and beliefs that you can't even listen to a song by someone unless you either know they are on your team, or can at least assume they are because they haven't told you enough to figure out they aren't?
"An astute businessperson should 'stick to their lane' and avoid getting involved in things that will impact their bottom line."
Artists usually have priorities that transcend maximizing quarterly profits. The idea that you actually think artists should 'stay in their lane' of doing 'business' is pretty demented if you think about it.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday January 29 2024, @11:48PM
I agree that most musicians have messages to share. My original comment noted that some artists will lean in to their views as part of their art. My comments are not directed at them.
More broadly, I'm talking about entertainers, including actors, TV personalities etc. An actor's craft does not inherently require them to demonstrate their personal values (though you could obviously infer some of them from the roles they choose to play). Richard Gere's views on Tibet have nothing at all to do with his body of work. Similarly, Taylor Swift's work has nothing to do with her views on the conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza or Taiwan. I don't really care what her opinion is on any of these conflicts, because it's no more informed than the average person on the street - I'd much rather hear from someone who has actually studied international affairs, the history of the key players involved, etc.
To take the above example further, it would be commercially foolish for Taylor Swift to declare her support for Ukraine/Russia/Gaza/Israel/Taiwan/China. She's not losing any fans at the moment through her silence on these matters, but she potentially loses millions of sales by "picking a side".
Of course, artists aren't always in it for the money, and many will use their platform to promote causes close to them. More power to them if the cause is more important than the money to them (and I have to admire those who do pursue noble causes above money). That doesn't mean that they've actually done their research or developed a well considered view though, which is why I don't place value in the personal views of entertainers, but rather those who have dedicated themselves to studying and understanding the issues at hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2024, @01:13AM (1 child)
Isn't she just this generations Madonna? Someone else just made the sexy pics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2024, @09:52AM