There's Probably Nothing We Can Do About This Awful Deepfake Porn Problem - 0 views
freddiedeboer.substack.com/...res-probably-nothing-we-can-do
internet censorship screening tech constraints wish
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we can’t (as in, are unable to in real-world terms) censor far-right content online because of the basic reality of modern communications technology. The internet makes the transmission of information, no matter how ugly or shocking or secret, functionally impossible to stop. Digital infrastructure is spread out across the globe, including in regimes that do not play ball with American legal or corporate mandates, and there’s plenty of server racks out there in the world buzzing along that are inaccessible to even the most dedicated hall monitors
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, it happens that I am one of those free speech absolutists, yes, but that is very explicitly not what the piece argues - it’s precisely an argument that whether we should censor is entirely moot, because we can’t. The technological impediments to cutting off the flow of information (at least that which is not tightly controlled at the supply-side) are now existential.
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This is a reality people have to accept, even if - especially if - they think that reality is corrosive and ugly. I suspect it’s a similar story with all of this horrible AI “deepfake” celebrity porn.
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The trouble is that, as I’ve seen again and again, in this era of entitlement people think saying “we can’t do this” necessarily means “I don’t want to.”