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Comment by fortran77 | Hacker News Reader

I agree this is a very complicated issue.

If someone were to draw a watercolor painting of a likeness of a President one doesn't like having sex with an equally despised congresswoman, most would agree that this is a classic "free speech issue" and is the very sort of protected speech that first ammendment clearly protects.

Ignoring tangential issues, like the copyright of the images used in the "deep fake", how is this situation any different?

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I don't know - I think somebody needs to name the bubble of conceit that came into the world when photography was invented, since that created a philosophical issue, rather than a resolution issue. We went from an implicit understanding that newspaper engravings were 'representational' to a blind belief that photographs were records of the real world, notwithstanding that they were being manipulated and selectively used (first for amusement, later for propaganda, etc.) right from the start. Until we name it, the distinction between porn pencil drawings and photorealistic depictions doesn't have any supporting and exclusive definitions and terminology.

> If someone were to draw a watercolor painting of a likeness of a President one doesn't like having sex with an equally despised congresswoman, most would agree that this is a classic "free speech issue" and is the very sort of protected speech that first ammendment clearly protects.

You would be wrong; there are many legal issues which can protect identifiable people from having their likeness used, especially if it is (1) without consent and (2) in a "private place" (or depicted in an intimate/private situation).

The person whose likeness is used would very much have recourse to sue, whether it's the painter of a watercolor or someone who generates a deepfake. The same principles apply.

By virtue of appearing to be a photograph. The medium itself is a message (cf. Marshall McLuhan). An image which appears to be a photograph conveys a meaning to the viewer that "this depicts a real event", whereas if I draw a picture, even if it is of something plausible but which as never happened, there isn't a perception that the image is being presented as evidence of an event which has taken place. If we know that enough people will draw such an inference from a statement, it can and should be treated as potentially libelous.

> An image which appears to be a photograph conveys a meaning to the viewer that "this depicts a real event"

That notion is going to have to die, and soon.

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