Facebook’s Dystopian Definition of ‘Fake’
Every time another “fake video” makes the rounds, its menace gets rehashed without those discussing it establishing what “fakeness” means in the first place. The latest one came last week, a doctored video of Nancy Pelosi. Unlike so-called deepfakes (machine-learning-made videos in which people appear to say or do things that never actually happened), this video is not technically sophisticated at all. It was altered by slowing down the playback and modifying the soundtrack. The result retains the pitch of Pelosi’s voice but makes it sound as if she is slurring her words, incoherent or drunk.
Many news outlets called it a fake; others called it doctored or distorted. Whatever you want to label it, the video was created to spread, and that’s exactly what happened. The Facebook page Politics WatchDog posted a version that has been viewed millions of times, eliciting sneering comments about Pelosi, possibly from viewers who didn’t realize that the video had been manipulated. Others appeared on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and elsewhere. President Donald Trump tweeted a reference to the video; his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani shared it, too, although Giuliani later deleted his post. News outlets have chased the story with fervor, even while correctly noting that such pursuit snares the media in the very trap the makers of the video hoped to set.
These sorts of events are insidious because it’s hard to form a response that isn’t a bad one. Talking about the video just gives its concocted message more oxygen. Ignoring it
