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Comment by AlecSchueler | Hacker News Reader

It's quite frightening to imagine what this could do when weaponised against women, used for harassment and the creation of nonconsensual pornography based on people's likeness. I wonder if this is one of the first things we'll start seeing legislation relating to.

It's also concerning to imagine the social impact this could have on young boys as well, in a climate where pornography addiction issues become more visible each year.

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I'm more concerned about censorship. China justifies their mass internet censorship with pornography bans, which have high public support. Will deepfakes push the US over the edge, bringing the free Internet to an end?

I'm not concerned at all about pornography addiction, I don't think that's real. On the contrary, pornography promotes autonomy and independence by making people less dependent on others for sexual stimulation. It's a massive social good, and unrestricted pornography is the sign of a modern society.

I don't think it's so simple and none of this is black and white. Stigma around pornography is bad because it unnecessarily restricts what adults may freely do with their bodies, but not all pornography is produced with full and uncoerced consent. Making an excuse to ban free speech by banning unharmful pornography is bad, but unrestrictedly producing fake porn of someone without their consent is also bad.

Banning porn in the US is a huge issue in the national conservative camp, at least if you listen to a little bit of their discourse around long term goals. If that camp comes to power expect restrictions in the US which would probably require enormous scale Internet clampdowns.

Banning pornography is the most extreme view. The question is should there be regulations to ensure consent from those whose likenesses are involved?

Commercially, I'd agree someone should have compensation for use of their likenesses, but what people choose to draw, imagine, photoshop, or deepfake for non-commercial use is their business and any state that regulates that would be a dystopian nightmare.

Not really, as we already have a bunch of regulations that limit publications in cases of defamation, hate speech, incitement to violence, harassment, cold pornography, videos of rape etc. and society is safer for it, not indeed a dystopian nightmare.

As much as I agree with you about those, GP mentioned something more specific:

>but what people choose to draw, imagine, photoshop, or deepfake for non-commercial use is their business

And although I'm sure that one can harass or incite violence or defame with artwork, whether that means artwork of the imagination as artwork should fall into that category is dubious. An instructive example here concerns fantasy versus 'hate speech' and where to draw that line while maintaining maximum freedom and a polite society.

I don't think society as particularly 'safer' in the cases of defamation and copyright infringement being prohibited; and when it comes to fiction I'm even more dubious, given that fiction is known to be able to produce statements we can more easily take as fantasy.

I don't get what commercialism changes about it.

If i make deepfake images of your wife being forced into sex, being beaten, crying and screaming, and then I distribute them online free of charge is that really harmless just because I don't profit from it?

Not at all; but it does test where 'harm' lies or should lie in legal system, leaving aside the human sensation. I would not like that to be legal, however that's irrelevant to the question of the art in itself. I'm not making a commercial argument here, I'm saying that these things aren't adequately covered by the 'bad' laws of defamation and copyright infringement.

In your example, I don't think I'd have a problem with the creation of the images if they're not distributed, but on a macro scale, if I put aside my ethical concerns with the proliferation of patriarchy, it's worth considering whether "anyone can do anything with images" would have such an effect if my wife were only one targeted among millions.

I'm surprised that you so quickly equate the free internet with the internet we have today. We already have widespread suppression of certain types of pornography, most notably that involving children.

The internet we have today is not free. The society we have is not a wholly free one but we rightfully make trade-offs to protect people.

We know that today there is already a huge issue of nonconsensual pornography, revenge porn etc. Why the line of what is "free" drawn at protecting these groups, why do we tolerate open abuse against women but not against children? I wonder if our outlook on women's safety as a society is really as forward thinking as we would hope when we look around the world today.

> "unrestricted pornography" is the sign of a modern society.

Is it though? In another world you could say the same thing about drugs. Some people in America today might say it about gun freedoms.

I don't know. I think there are lines to be drawn and I think we can be open to discussing those without falling immediately into hysterics about state overreach.

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