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The White House wants to 'cryptographically verify' videos of Joe Biden so viewers don't mistake them for AI deepfakes
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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Agreed and I still think there is value in doing it.
I honestly do not see the value here. Barring maybe a small minority, anyone who would believe a deepfake about Biden would probably also not believe the verification and anyone who wouldn't would probably believe the administration when they said it was fake.
The value of the technology in general? Sure. I can see it having practical applications. Just not in this case.
It helps journalists, etc, when files have digital signatures verifying who is attesting to it. If the WH has their own published public key for signing published media and more then it's easy to verify if you have originals or not.
Problem is that broadly speaking, you would only sign the stuff you want to sign.
Imagine you had a president that slapped a toddler, and there was a phone video of it from the parents. The white house isn't about to sign that video, because why would they want to? Should the journalists discard it because it doesn't carry the official White House blessing?
It would limit the ability for someone to deep fake an official edit of a press briefing, but again, what if he says something damning, and the 'official' footage edits it out, would the press discard their own recordings because they can't get it signed, and therefore not credible?
That's the fundamental challenge in this sort of proposal, it only allows people to endorse what they would have wanted to endorse in the first place, and offers no mechanism to prove/disprove third party sources that are the only ones likely to carry negative impressions.
But then the journalists have to check if the source is trustworthy, as usual. Then they can add their own signature to help other papers check it
To that extent, we already have that.
I go to 'https://cnn.com', I have cryptographic verification that cnn attests to the videos served there. I go to youtube, and I have assurances that the uploader is authenticated as the name I see in the description.
If I see a repost of material claimed to be from a reliable source, I can go chase that down if I care (and I often do).
It’s not a challenge, because this is only valid for photos and videos distributed by the White House, which they already wouldn’t do.
The challenge is that it would have to leave out all the photos and videos taken by journalists and spectators. That’s where the possible baby slapping would come out, and we would still have no idea whether to trust it
I don't even think that matters when Trump's people are watching media that won't verify it anyway.
The world is not black and white. There are not just trump supporters and Biden supporters. I know it's hard to grasp but there are tons of people in the the toss up category.
You're right that this probably won't penetrate the deeply perverted world of trump cultists, but the wh doesn't expect to win the brainwashed over. They are going for those people who could go one way or another.
I find it hard to believe that there are too many people who truly can't decide between Trump and Biden at this point. The media really wants a horse race here, but if your mind isn't made up by this point, I think you're unlikely to vote in the first place.
I'll be happy to be proven wrong and have this sway people who might vote for Trump to vote for Biden though.
So, the race is basically already decided but there is a conspiracy among the media and polling companies to make it look like the race is actually close and that there are undecides. Of course, the only way to prove this wrong would be with polls, but we've conveniently already just rejected that evidence. Very convenient.
Ah yes, our oh-so-accurate polls.
https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2021/07/19/pre-election-polls-in-2020-had-the-largest-errors-in-40-years/
A couple of things.
First, your link is outdated: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/
Yes, 2020 was a bad year, but last year was actually a very good year. Basically what you are saying is that "4 years ago polls were bad, so that allows me to just believe whatever I want."
Second, if you believe you have no metric by which to measure something, the correct thought is "I'm not sure what the answer is" not "what I think is true must be true."
Plus, don't believe it was missed that you just outright ignored the whole part of your post that this is some conspiracy, of course thrown out there with zero evidence.
How on Earth am I saying that?
Have you met the average Fox viewer?
Conservative media not giving a shit about the truth isn't a conspiracy theory, it's a fact. Hence Fox having to pay a billion dollars to Dominion.
Sorry I got it wrong. What exactly are you saying with that point?
What does the average Fox viewer have to do with you and your point?
Wait, now we are just talking about conservative media? I thought we were talking about the media wanting you to think there was actually a race?
Yes, I was just talking about conservative media. The media as a whole loves a horse race, but they aren't generally willing to lie to get it.
That said, polls right now are all over the place, which does put the media in general in a good place because a contentious election means more viewers.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
But that's not a conspiracy, that's just capitalism- an exciting election equals more news viewers equals higher advertising rates. Would, say, CBS news lie about the polls to achieve that? I doubt it. Would Fox? Absolutely.
So how does this tie into your original point that it's hard for you to believe that anyone isn't decided? The whole point of bringing up polls in general was to show that this shouldn't be hard to believe at all. The claim that you were always just talking about the conservative media seems like a massive non-sequitur.
It is impossible to escape political propaganda in modern America. It's on your internet, it's on your radio, it's on your cable TV, it's on your streaming TV, it's on your super bowl ads, it's on your gas station pumps, it's on your news sources, it's on your social media. "Oh I don't pay attention to politics" is no longer a reasonable excuse because that is impossible, it's shoved down the throat of every citizen nonstop from every angle. The two candidates, in this case Trump and Biden, are such polar opposites of each other in every single possible regard that the only way someone can be undecided between the two is if their multiple personalities are arguing over it.
So what are you saying, exactly? That the polls are made up and there is some conspiracy to mislead? What you are saying sounds potentially reasonable, but at the same time the numbers don't support it.
Personally, I've never been polled. Not once. And neither has anyone else I've ever met in my life. I'm not saying they're made up wholesale, because frankly, I have no idea. But I am saying that, at the very least, they're not likely to be an accurate representation of the American citizenry as a whole. If nothing else, the percentage of "undecided" voters raises some eyebrows for me for the reasons I just stated. If you've lived in America the last 8-16 years and are somehow still a fence sitter, you've managed to ignore a veritable deluge of information being sprayed directly into your eyeballs with all the delicacy and care of a fire hose.
I understand the average person is probably pretty dumb, but I have faith in humanity that a significant percentage of us aren't that dumb. Being on the bell curve means you're plenty intelligent enough to understand whether you want to vote for red or for blue and for what reasons. I refuse to believe that there are people in America legitimately weighing if they would rather vote for protected freedoms for American citizens or vote for banning books that speak about protected freedoms for American citizens. The two choices are so wildly opposed to each other in structure and in intent that there isn't a choice to be made, all people will land on one side or the other of this argument and there is no center ground to waffle around.
Twenty years ago, I understood undecided voters, because there still remained some small amount of nuance in the way American politics were carried out. We have now lost that. Our political landscape is now Blue Team vs Anti-Blue Team and the fence that the undecided voters were previously sitting on is now uninhabitable rubble, because there is now no component of our government that can come to a sensible cross-aisle decision. The independent, moderate voter is now a relic of the past in our supercharged, hyper-partisan pre-civil-war violence mockery of a civilized government.
I feel like this was a whole lot of words to dodge the actual question. I get that you don't believe that people can be still undecided, and I full understand the sentiment (although, I also recognize that I am a lot more in tune with politics than other people, this isn't calling them stupid, but simply focused on other things).
But the numbers tell a different story. So what are you saying about those numbers? That they're faked?
Yes, when polls are all over the place, it's hard to believe them. I gave you the link to see for yourself.
Sure, the grandparents that get all their news via Facebook might see a fake Biden video and eat it up like all the other hearsay they internalize.
But, if they’re like my parents and have the local network news on half the damn time, at least the typical mainstream network news won’t be showing the forged videos. Maybe they’ll even report a fact check on it?!?
And yeah, many of them will just take it as evidence that the mainstream media is part of the conspiracy. That’s a given.
If a cryptographic claim/validation is provided then anyone refuting the claims can be seen to be a bad faith actor. Voters are one dimension of that problem but mainstream media being able to validate election videos is super important both domestically, but also internationally as the global community needs to see efforts being undertaken to preserve free and fair elections. This is especially true given the consequences if america’s enemies are seen to have been able to steer the election.