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Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia

arstechnica.com

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Re: Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia

#51

Post by zzo38computer »

curryst wrote: post #46
solotronics wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I thought we had freedom of speech in the US. If I want to draw a picture of you doing something nasty and post it to my own website why should the state stop me?

IANAL, but at least for images that are designed to appear to be, or likely to be perceived as, a real photograph, it strikes me as comparable to libel or slander. To me, the distinction is whether a viewer is likely to interpret the image as satire or general humor, or if they are likely to believe that it is genuine photographic evidence of a compromising event. Satire and humor are protected You drawing a picture…

As long as it includes a disclaimer that it is a fake (even though it appears to be a real photograph), I do not complain about it, because I like freedom of speech.

Re: Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia

#52

Post by tick_tock_tick »

LAMike wrote: post #48

For everyone saying this is a violation of the 1st amendment - The 1st only extends to what you can say on your personal property . There is a reason you can't yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater, it's because you are infringing on the property rights of the people who bought a ticket to the movie, and the landloard who is expected to keep everyone safe. You don't have any property rights to any other human other than y…

You are legally allowed to yell "FIRE" in a movie theater. The idea you're not is a myth from a early 1900s supreme court ruling.

https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

Re: Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia

#53

Post by TomMckenny »

donatj wrote: post #49
LAMike wrote: post #48

For everyone saying this is a violation of the 1st amendment - The 1st only extends to what you can say on your personal property . There is a reason you can't yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater, it's because you are infringing on the property rights of the people who bought a ticket to the movie, and the landloard who is expected to keep everyone safe. You don't have any property rights to any other human other than y…

I'm not sure if this is a joke or not. Nothing about what you said is correct. The FIRE in a crowded theater argument has nothing to do with property rights. It's about creating dangerous situations. Deep fakes aren't infringing anyone else's property rights, other than maybe very tenuously arguably considering likeness "intellectual property". In the United States however you have no expectation of privacy in public…

>I'm not sure if this is a joke or not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Actually I wonder where this family ideas come from. There must be some engine promulgating the bizarre notion that the only real rights are property rights and all others must derive from them or be dismissed.

Re: Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia

#54

Post by EliRivers »

solotronics wrote: post #39
pfisch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A very talented artist creates a realistic watercolor of the President in a compromising situation with Kim Jong-un and posts to Instagram. Probably legal. It is satire meant to be political commentary. Not distributed with the intent to "coerce, harass, or intimidate" As for the other ones idk, probably illegal. The last one almost certainly is, and honestly it probably should be.

Why? I thought we had freedom of speech in the US. If I want to draw a picture of you doing something nasty and post it to my own website why should the state stop me?

From an outsider's perspective, simply riffing out loud, you're free to say (and draw) whatever you like. That's not inherently forbidden, but one is NOT free to deliberately cause distress or harm; you don't get a free ride just because your weapon of choice is words (or pictures).

I'm free to hold a hammer in my hand; I have freedom-of-hammer-holding. I'm not free to threaten someone with it; my freedom-of-hammer-holding does not give me a free ride if that hammer becomes my weapon of choice.

The problem isn't with the hammer, or me holding it; it's with me deliberately causing distress and harm. The problem isn't me saying something; the problem is with me deliberately causing distress and harm.

Why should someone get a waiver when deliberately hurting people for their own pleasure, simply because the weapon of choice is words or pictures?

A hand-drawn picture posted on your website would probably be more akin to self-harm in this particular example; I'm just riffing out loud on the idea that it's okay to hurt people for your own pleasure so long as the weapon is words (or pictures).

Re: Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia

#56

Post by chrshawkes »

solotronics wrote: post #39
pfisch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A very talented artist creates a realistic watercolor of the President in a compromising situation with Kim Jong-un and posts to Instagram. Probably legal. It is satire meant to be political commentary. Not distributed with the intent to "coerce, harass, or intimidate" As for the other ones idk, probably illegal. The last one almost certainly is, and honestly it probably should be.

Why? I thought we had freedom of speech in the US. If I want to draw a picture of you doing something nasty and post it to my own website why should the state stop me?

Um... harassment maybe? Why not also go to his place of employment, talk to all his coworkers and distribute the information manually to anybody you see, should that be legal?

Re: Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia

#57

Post by tptacek »

sandworm101 wrote: post #35
tptacek wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not at all the case, no. If you use extraordinary new computing facilities to create a convincing facsimile of a public person having sex with someone else on camera, you're very unlikely to skate on the "reasonable person" standard. I remain interested in how familiar you are with deepfake technology, because it is nothing at all like the Falwell parody in Hustler or the porn parody film you just cited.

I am well aware of what can be done having once worked in film/TV production. But the quality of the fake is irrelevant. Falwell involved an absolutely perfect fake. It was a text interview. There was nothing in the interview, beyond the nature of the content, that suggested it wasn't real. They even used his real face in the portrait. Surely more than a few people fell for the gag. The parallels to a modern deepfake…

This doesn't even cohere as an argument. The "absolutely perfect fake" you're referring to was a parody (print) Campari ad with nothing but a headshot of Falwell and an "interview" that opened with "My first time was in an outhouse outside Lynchburg, Virginia"; "Wasn't it a little cramped?"; "Not after I kicked the goat out". A deepfake uses GANs to synthesize a convincing video of its subject, something that wasn't even technologically possible a few years ago.

As I showed you a moment ago, even the syllabus of Rehnquist's opinion acknowledges that no reasonable person could have believed the Hustler ad to be true.

I'm becoming convinced that you're arguing for the sake of arguing.

Re: Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia

#58

Post by chrshawkes »

pretendscholar wrote: post #23
moate wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason that harassment and slander are crimes. There's always limits to what you can "say" when what you're saying isn't just unpopular but actually damaging.

slander is not a crime

Libel is illegal and in the same category.

Re: Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia

#59

Post by chrshawkes »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #52
LAMike wrote: post #48

For everyone saying this is a violation of the 1st amendment - The 1st only extends to what you can say on your personal property . There is a reason you can't yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater, it's because you are infringing on the property rights of the people who bought a ticket to the movie, and the landloard who is expected to keep everyone safe. You don't have any property rights to any other human other than y…

You are legally allowed to yell "FIRE" in a movie theater. The idea you're not is a myth from a early 1900s supreme court ruling. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

Especially if there is a fire, what're you supposed to yell?

Re: Deepfake revenge porn distribution now a crime in Virginia

#60

Post by sandworm101 »

apo wrote: post #33

> The new law amends existing law in the Commonwealth that defines distribution of nudes or sexual imagery without the subject's consent —often called revenge porn —as a Class 1 misdemeanor. The new bill updated the law by adding a category of "falsely created videographic or still image" to the text. This is a strange law: > Any person who, with the intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate, maliciously disseminates o…

Fine print.

>> where such person knows or has reason to know that he is not licensed or authorized to disseminate or sell such videographic or still image is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

First amendment gives authorization. Had they meant the more colloquial "without permission of the subject" they would have said so. They are allowing authorization from a variety of sources, the constitution included. So #2 is fine as basically anything to do with the president, in his role as president, is fair game.

And they said you have to know or reasonably know that you do not have permission. So the inner thoughts of the artist is an issue and it is very hard to prove knowledge of a negative fact. If you think you have permission somehow, then maybe you do. So if the kid thinks the constitution protects his work, maybe that's enough to avoid the law even where the constitution does not.

It's a badly written law. I suspect written by people who know it is doomed to fail.

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