Hacker News Reader

Comment by not2b | Hacker News Reader

It's already the legal standard in many places that a court doesn't just accept evidence like a photo or a video. Typically the photographer testifies under penalty of perjury that they were there and can be questioned about the circumstances in which they took the picture/video and any post-processing that might distort what we see.

So we can say that either it's real or we can identify the specific people who might be lying.

View on HN

Unfortunately, in media and the public discourse / memosphere, that's a standard notoriously difficult to establish or enforce.

People, and crowds, will respond to first impressions.

What if we put out enough deepfakes that they get desensitized to it and just stop believing stuff on screens altogether?

Past experience suggests that that likely won't be too effective. "Big lie" propaganda is profoundly effective, even amongst those who are painfully aware of its existence and methods as individuals, and at the population level, there seem to be virtually no defences.

Rather, there'll need to be the emergence of credible and trustworthy channels which verify messaging and content before it's widely disseminated.

That largely means re-implementing the sort of media gatekeepers we've seen in the past. Though the challenge of bad-faith actors emerging in such roles at considerable scale points to further challenges, even with that model.

Under a regime in which free speech is considered a fundamental right, any sort of preemptive management by government mandate becomes intensely difficult.

>"Big lie" propaganda is profoundly effective,

I mean, people still believe we put men on the moon, and people still believe the Earth is round! /s

Some even subscribe to the belief that water is wet.

For now. It might become more important.

Don't think of a white elephant.

Don't breathe consciously.

Don't lose the game.

But if you lack technology to detect fakes how can you ever prove perjury? Photographer would then risk nothing by lying.

If the person is a professional, lying is a huge risk, as in the end of a career even if not convicted.

Earlier this year, a man who was repeatedly caught lying as a journalist was forced to resign.

Unfortunately, he was the British Prime Minister by that point.

Corroborating evidence

Reply on news.ycombinator.com