X, the social media platform owned by Trump adviser Elon Musk, is challenging the constitutionality of a Minnesota ban on using deepfakes to influence elections and harm candidates.
Free speech is incredibly important but it has fundamental issues that should not be undermined for the sake of protecting the core concepts of free speech.
For instance, lying is protected speech. You can lie all day long. That’s your choice and it is up to those who listen to decide for themselves whether they believe you or not.
You could choose to lie about something someone else said. That is also protected speech. Again, it is up to the listener to choose their own beliefs.
But is it free speech to create a near perfect facsimile of someone saying or doing something that they never said or did? Perhaps if it is just for parody purposes. But if it is meant to amplify a political message built upon a lie, then no, no it is not. Why? Because it skips an important epistemological step whereby the recipient of the message knows it came from a third party and their belief of the message is predicated on their knowledge it came from someone else who may or may not be believable.
So if it is a deepfake the message can appear, credulously, to come directly from a political opponent. If it is just a slanderous lie about that political opponent, it must come from from a third party of which belief is a necessary component in communication.
Free speech is incredibly important but it has fundamental issues that should not be undermined for the sake of protecting the core concepts of free speech.
For instance, lying is protected speech. You can lie all day long. That’s your choice and it is up to those who listen to decide for themselves whether they believe you or not.
You could choose to lie about something someone else said. That is also protected speech. Again, it is up to the listener to choose their own beliefs.
But is it free speech to create a near perfect facsimile of someone saying or doing something that they never said or did? Perhaps if it is just for parody purposes. But if it is meant to amplify a political message built upon a lie, then no, no it is not. Why? Because it skips an important epistemological step whereby the recipient of the message knows it came from a third party and their belief of the message is predicated on their knowledge it came from someone else who may or may not be believable.
So if it is a deepfake the message can appear, credulously, to come directly from a political opponent. If it is just a slanderous lie about that political opponent, it must come from from a third party of which belief is a necessary component in communication.