Follow Up on Previous Posts
Here are a few followups from technology stories/ideas I wrote about over the past few years. It’s always fascinating how a story unravels and develops. Technology is such a fast paced environment which is exciting and daunting at the same time.
Youtube Rewind
I wrote about The Most Disliked Youtube Video in 2018. Well Youtube did another Rewind for 2019 and it’s the 3rd most disliked All Time.
You can watch it for yourself:
The criticism for 2019 was that it was stats heavy and missed the spirit of the content creator community. Will Youtube try for a 2nd time to make amends in 2020?
Facebook Bans Deep Fakes
I wrote about what deep fake are and their implication in November 2019. Facebook announced on their blog they’ll be banning deepfake content with the following criteria:
> It has been edited or synthesized – beyond adjustments for clarity or quality – in ways that aren’t apparent to an average person and would likely mislead someone into thinking that a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say. And:
> It is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning that merges, replaces or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic.
Some have speculated this is in preparation ahead of the 2020 US Election to mitigate voter manipulation and misinformation. What remains to be discovered is how effect this policy will be given the whole purpose of deepfakes is to appear real. This means that deefake detection technology will need to be heavily protected so that it doesn’t become a tool for even better deepfakes.
“Shallowfakes” however, are still allowed i.e. parody / satire content which are more obviously edited. The policy does not take into account sliced up or altered video footage cut in a way that can be misleading, which still leaves room for “fake news”. One example that would still be allowed with the new policy in place is Nancy Pelosi’s video that made her appear drunk.
More TikTok News
After my initial write up of TikTok, some more newsworthy information has come out.
- The app has reached over 400 million daily active users, up from 250 million in Jan 2019. Here are some more stats that have come out ByteDance’s (TikTok’s parent company) Annual Report
- With the platform ties to China, there are rumours that Bytedance is considering selling a majority stake in order to protect their asset. This is in light of potential legal and political risk from the US, which has already banned the app on government issued phones within their military departments
