ByteDance Tells Users to Stop Uploading Real People. The Internet, As Usual, Has Other Plans.

The news this week, friends, is that an AI-generated video is fooling the grass-touching NPCs of the internet. Or rather, it almost fooled them. A synthetic clip featuring several prominent figures apparently fighting over Jeffrey Epstein made the rounds, and the only thing that gave it away, in this reporter’s case, was the subject matter and the fact that I am, by any reasonable definition, chronically online. ^[1] Otherwise, I probably would have believed it, the same way the rest of you have believed any number of things that turned out to be convincingly fake.

Which brings us to the copyright argument. Several studios have responded to the situation by sending cease and desist letters to ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, which had hosted the original video and others like it. ^[2] Apparently, ByteDance responded by disallowing users from uploading images of real people. ^[3] To which I say: good luck with that.

Because if that amount of power can be held by any idiot with a smartphone, then there is very little stopping them from generating deepfakes featuring any public figure and showing them saying pretty much anything the operator wants. ^[4] We are, in effect, past the point of no return. Studios can send as many cease and desist letters as they like; the next video is being generated in someone’s pocket right now. Not to mention the next one, and the one after that.

The other piece of news this week is that the nanya Israel video is, in fact, real. ^[5] Not a deepfake. Not a synthetic. A genuine recording of a real event. Which raises the question, in my opinion: in a media environment where any fool with a phone can produce a fake, what does it mean when the real thing circulates? Make of that what you will.

I have, accordingly, taken precautions. As you may have noticed, I am wearing a mask in this segment. ^[6] The reasoning is straightforward: if they cannot see my face, they cannot use it to make AI-generated content. It is the journalistic equivalent of going off the grid. No face, no footage, no fake Satya Pramesi endorsing some cryptocurrency scheme at three in the morning.

The trouble is, as my producer helpfully pointed out during the taping, my face is in another video. ^[7] Apparently, someone has already used it. Which means the mask is, at best, a partial solution. At worst, a theatrical gesture. In fairness, a theatrical gesture is the only gesture available, so we proceed.

The deeper pattern, if you will permit the observation, is that the platforms that distribute this content are not the same entities that create it. ByteDance did not generate the Epstein clip; it hosted it. The studios did not create the deepfake; they sent letters about it. The Indonesian internet user — sorry, the global internet user — did not invent the technology; they simply watched it. Everyone in the chain is downstream of someone else’s decision, and the decisions, as far as one can tell, are not being made.

Which leaves us, the audience, in the position of asking — and here I am using the Indonesian internet’s own term for this exact moment — nanya. The chronically online know. The grass-touching NPCs, allegedly, do not. The platforms claim to be working on it. The studios claim to be defending their copyright. The mask does not help, but I am wearing it anyway. The end of reality as we know it. Allegedly.