My neighbor thought a deepfake of our mayor was real

Last month, a fake video of our mayor saying he'd raise local taxes went around. My neighbor Frank saw it on his phone and was furious. He brought it up at our block party, quoting the exact fake number, 'a 15% increase'. I showed him the official city site where the mayor denied it. Frank just stared, confused. He said, 'But I saw him say it.' How do you help someone trust their own eyes again?

3 comments

3 Comments

ward.jamie1mo ago

Honestly, is it that big a deal though? Amy_west's idea sounds like a lot of work.

amy_west1mo ago

Try showing him how easy it is to make one. Pull up a free app on your phone and do a silly deepfake of your own face saying something he knows isn't true, like that you're going to give him a million dollars. Seeing the process, even a simple version, might break the spell. It's one thing to hear it's fake, another to see how the sausage gets made.

troy_price1mo ago

Amy's got a point. I tried that once to prove a video was fake and ended up making a clip of my own head singing a bad pop song. Took ten minutes and looked terrible, but it did the job. Seeing my own janky face move wrong was way more convincing than any article. Sometimes you gotta fight stupid with stupider.