The other week Facebook came under fire when they refused to remove a doctored video of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, which made her appear drunk and out-of-it, that had been shared by many right-wing figures, including the president of the United States. It was only a matter of time before some jokester tested their policy. And as per Boing Boing, this one, which artists Bill Posters and Daniel Howe posted to the Facebook company Instagram, is a good one.
Like the Pelosi video, Posters and Howe’s clip manipulates sound and image to demonize its target, which in their case is Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg. The clip slows down his speech and inserts new audio.
“Imagine this for a second: One man with total control of billions of people’s stolen data — all their secret, their lives, their futures,” Zuckerberg is made to say in a video from 2017.
This type of clip — which reworks existing clips to tarnish targets — is of a disturbing new genre called “deepfakes.” Facebook ruled that they didn’t violate their policies, as they could be conceived as mere parodies. Many have pointed out that much of their audience takes it for gospel. There’s little chance anyone will think Zuckerberg was bragging about stealing data, but perhaps Zuckerberg himself feels otherwise.
(Via Boing Boing)