Nancy Pelosi's Manipulated Video Could Be a Sign of the Future of the 2020 Electoral Cycle



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A video modified to give the impression that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has appeared has been around social media and major digital platforms in recent days.

(WASHINGTON) – Leading digital companies have reacted differently to slow the viral spread of a subtly manipulated video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – a video that could be a harbinger of the falsification of the next digital policy in 2020 and beyond.

A video that appeared to have been digitally altered to slow down the Speaker's speech during a recent public appearance, making her look uncomfortable, went around the social media and the big plates. digital forms in recent days.

YouTube said it had removed the versions of the slowed video, claiming that it violated the company's rules.

A Facebook representative said that their third-party partners, having verified the facts, called the video "fake" and that the social media giant "significantly reduced its distribution" in the news thread of Facebook. Versions of the video still exist on Facebook, but one of them has been viewed more than 2.5 million times as of the date of this report.

A spokesman for Twitter declined to comment, but at least one version is still available on this platform as of the date of this report. Twitter's media policy prohibits videos that show things like "free" or "adult content," but does not mention misleading videos.

Slow motion video is one of two controversial Pelosi videos. President Trump retweeted Thursday the new Pelosi video that had stammered in another speech. This decision was made when the two political leaders exchanged more and more personal public blows.

Ben Nimmo, an information defense researcher at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Lab, said slowed video is the latest example of the increasing ease with which online content can be modified to wreak chaos in the process policy – a threat to which he expects. will only develop in the run-up to the 2020 presidential race.

"It does not have to be very complex … but it touches the crucial nerve," he said. "There are people who will want to believe it and others who will want to share it because it suits their political convictions.

"A fake does not have to be 100% convincing; you just have to be convincing enough, "he said.

Nimmo said Pelosi's video was also representative of the "slippery slope" from relatively straightforward manipulation to dreaded "fake" videos.

Deep Fakes is a kind of more sophisticated digital manipulation in which a programmer can convincingly believe that a person has said or done something that she did not say, as pointed out by an ABC News investigation. Nightline. "

Experts have warned that deep convincing falsifications – such as the one produced by Buzzfeed that would put words in the mouth of former President Barack Obama – could make their appearance before the 2020 race as technology becomes more and more prevalent. more accessible.

"I think the challenge is that it's easier to create manipulated images and videos and that this can be done by an individual now," said Matt Turek, head of the media forensics program at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, led by the US Department of Defense. The Defense told ABC News that it was fake in December. "The manipulations that may have required resources at the state level or several people and a considerable financial effort can now be made at home."

Deep Fakes has been criticized by US intelligence officials at this year's global hearing on the global threat of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In his discussion of online influence and threats of electoral interference, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats said that "US strategic opponents and competitors will likely attempt to use Falsified and similar technologies for machine learning to create compelling image, audio and video files – but fake – increase the campaigns of influence directed against the United States and our allies and partners. "

Nimmo said it was important that the public be aware of a threat that would not go away anytime soon.

"I think we will have to prepare for all the elections in the coming years," he said.

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