Comment by jp42
2 days ago
In recent India's general election. A deepfake video of a leading politician costed a massive vote shift and they almost lost an election. The damage was done by the time they have clarified it is fake.
2 days ago
In recent India's general election. A deepfake video of a leading politician costed a massive vote shift and they almost lost an election. The damage was done by the time they have clarified it is fake.
I've heard the social media landscape is a lot different in India because so much of it passes through the comparatively-opaque WhatsApp rumor mill.
Compared to?
Most of the West? WhatsApp groups in South Asia seem to work like Telegram groups in Russia, and I don’t know that I’m aware of a European or American equivalent
4 replies →
John Oliver did a piece on this back in 2021.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/john-oliver-tackl...
Larger populations are hurt the most of this. Think of some small town with say 10 people in it and a local election. Someone puts out a deepfake. If it converts 10% of people to believe it that is just one crazy person in the town of ten people. Easily ignored. Now if you have an indian city of 10 million and convert 10% to believe your deepfake, now that is 1 million people on your side and that can’t so easily be ignored.
Propaganda spreads faster and affects more people in denser and larger population sizes. And when propaganda affects more people it starts feeling less like propaganda and starts feeling believable.