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Comment by autoexec | Hacker News Reader

If they'd cut out their classmate's head from their yearbook photo and pasted it onto the body of a pornstar with elmer's glue would police have gotten involved? This type of bullying is as old as dirt.

Bullies suck, and the kids who did this should get in some kind of trouble with the school and their parents, but this is not something police need to be involved in.

The moral panic over deepfakes is ridiculous, but the endless push to give literal children police records for acting like dumb kids is what's actually dangerous.

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You don't see a tangible difference in the detectability of the fake being a factor? The glued on photo will always be uncanny, but deepfake will not.

> glued on photo will always be uncanny, but deepfake will not

Eh, this is still a civil matter. Unless the picture was made for the purpose of harassment, there is no ill will we can presuppose the perpetrators had towards the victim. Just immense immaturity and a lack of judgement and empathy. Judgement and empathy can be taught. (If it was done with the intent of causing distress, i.e. cruelly, it's a matter for the police.)

Did you read the article? It states they created the images and were sharing them. This 'boys will be boys' mentality contributes to these things.

> Did you read the article? It states they created the images and were sharing them.

I'd need to see more to conclude harassment, i.e. proof of intent to cause psychological harm, versus teasing without any clue about the impacts of one's actions.

> 'boys will be boys' mentality

I don't think this is equivalent. This is immature kids playing with new technology and pushing the boundaries of decency with it. Without proof of intended malice, or evidence of actual harm, it's not a matter for criminal procedure.

> proof of intent to cause psychological harm, versus teasing without any clue about the impacts of one's actions

Teasing, whether you have a clue or not, is intent to cause psychological harm.

> Without proof of intended malice, or evidence of actual harm, it's not a matter for criminal procedure.

I concur. However I think it absolutely is grounds for a civil matter.

> Teasing, whether you have a clue or not, is intent to cause psychological harm

As someone who teased and was teased, was bullied and may have crossed into bullying, I disagree. The behaviours, when done with a group, are the seeking of social approval. The victim is closer to irrelevant than targeted. Where it crosses into bullying or harassment is where the victim is germane.

> I'd need to see more to conclude harassment,

Yes, that's why invesitgations happen.

Fair enough. But this is like 1/100th of the transgression of spreading actual photos from gym class showers, which is a thing that happens quite a lot since everyone has a camera nowadays.

> spreading actual photos from gym class showers, which is a thing that happens quite a lot

Source? It's a shower. Where are you hiding the phone?

You don't hide it. You take a camera and photograph some girl or guy far down in the pecking order.

I guess the FBI might knock down my door soon after trying to Google for some report or stats about it. Just some random news articles. Maybe I overestimated the problem?

I think we can assume ill intent, the same as if they were spreading lies or real nudes (revenge porn).

Huh? Bunch of horny teens sharing fake pictures of nudes. Forgive me, but assuming ill intent is what is dangerous here.

Of classmates. The second you drag in another party who did not consent you have crossed a serious line.

> Eh, this is still a civil matter.

Well, yes, that's clearly true whether or not it is also a criminal matter.

> Unless the picture was made for the purpose of harassment, there is no ill will we can presuppose the perpetrators had towards the victim

That is almost tautologically true, but on what bases do you conclude that it is so certain as not to warrant inquiry that there was no intent to harrass?

> on what bases do you conclude that it is so certain as not to warrant inquiry that there was no intent to harrass

I conclude it is uncertain enough to warrant solely civil engagement on the basis of them being kids. Otherwise, every five year old pantsing their sibling becomes a matter for armed law enforcement.

Yeah, no, that doesn't follow. "Kids" aren't a uniform category; there's a reason that kids under 7 are generally viewed as incapable of the necessary mental capacity for criminal accountability, and between 7 and 14 there is in most states a presumption of incapacity that must be overcome in addition to the usual proof requirements for crime. So, no, you don't have to treat acts by minors in their late teens as irrefutably noncriminal without investigation to avoid considering acts by five year olds to be that way (even before considering ways that the act you suggest for the five year old was dissimilar to the one at issue for the older minors in the article, which would be another axis on which treatment could also reasonably be differentiated.)

A deepfake is more detectable as a fake than a good photoshop, and people have been using that for this sort of thing for decades, but ultimately it doesn't really matter. The fact is that giving children police records doesn't improve the situation in any way. These kids need education and parenting, not jail time, court dates, and a sex offender status.

The act of creating something is usually just irrelevant tinkering. Discussions like this on HN tend to overemphasize the importance of creation, probably because most of us have jobs where we are supposed to create something. But the real-world consequences of creation usually don't come from what was created or how it was created, but from distributing the creation.

And that's what laws should be concerned about. Creating something for your private consumption is usually a private matter. Distributing it should be judged according to the potential harm, as well as to potential legitimate uses.

> Distributing it should be judged according to the potential harm

I'll admit that showing your buddies a deepfake/photoshop/cut and paste job of that one kid you hate from social studies is very different from creating a website or fake social media profile where the whole world can see it. In this case, it seems like some pics were shared with classmates who deleted the photos when they were caught and now the police can't even find copies to see what all the fuss was about, but the internet adds an opportunity for harms that extend far beyond the classroom.

There might be some instances where a situation requires intervention beyond parents and teachers, but I see no evidence that this was one of them.

Whaaaaaaa? How should it be legal to imagine minors naked? And in this case there is proof in the form of the child pornography they distributed.

> How should it be legal to imagine minors naked?

Dicey grounds here, but it should be legal to imagine _anything_. Thoughtcrimes are always wrong, and there never should be any law on what you can think or imagine.

If it were a crime we'd likely have to repeatedly arrest every single student until they got out of high school. The curiosity of children and the hormones of puberty make the crime of imaging a certainty.

Every single human adult alive today has imagined minors naked, and particularly in a sexualized way, including you. We were all teenagers once, and in the company of other teenagers whom we were attracted to.

I seem to recall, there was a case where a man was convicted of child pornography, because he cut out pictures of children's faces, and glued them onto the bodies of adult porn actors.

That seems kind of wrong to me too, but the main thing that differentiates it is that the person in that case was an adult. We know that kids are going to do stupid things and childhood is the time to teach them to be better. It's not helping anyone to ruin a kid's life for acting like a child.

The spread of a sheet of paper, is different than a digital sheet of paper, is different than a digitally stored video.

The moral panic might be ridiculous but taking some time to research the impacts so far should be a little sobering to a generalization of an interpreted generalization.

In this case, an extremely straw law might go a bit further than trying to suppress or control technology.

they need it so they can police us from making copyrighted material. that's all its about.

The article describes them as teens so they’re almost certainly old enough to experience some more serious repercussions for sexual harassment. It’s the old as dirt behaviour that this is “acting like dumb kids” so it should slide that helps perpetuate this sort of thing.

> It’s the old as dirt behaviour that this is “acting like dumb kids” so it should slide that helps perpetuate this sort of thing.

I never said it "should slide". This sort of behaviour is common in children and childhood is exactly the time to teach them to be better. This is a matter for the school and the parents to handle. There is zero reason for police to be involved in any of it.

That depends on the extent of the harm. Some bullying is “mild” and recoverable. Assault is another matter. Reaching for the law as the first step is not a good idea, but excluding the possibility simply because they’re minors would be a mistake.

I just reread the article. Where are you seeing that someone was assaulted?

I was responding to the parent comment, not addressing contents of the article (except insofar as there is overlap).

If you just shrug it off as “bullying” but I’m not convinced this behaviour is so innocent and I suspect that at some point between the age of 13-19 as in this case there should be more serious repercussions.

> If you just shrug it off as “bullying”

It is literally bullying

> I suspect that at some point between the age of 13-19 as in this case there should be more serious repercussions.

Child development doesn't advance on a set schedule. Kids at the same age can be at vastly different levels of maturity and even older kids often make stupid choices carelessly. It's part of growing up. Their brains are a work in progress and that applies most to the parts that help them make good choices (https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Fam...).

That doesn't mean that kids can't make good choices, but it does mean we need to expect them to make terrible ones from time to time. As adults, it's our job to show them how they screwed up and set them right, but destroying their lives when their brains let them down isn't helping anyone.

Children need teaching and guidance as they grow up, not prison sentences or sex offender status. We gain nothing by treating children like criminals for acting like kids.

Great we should assess the child on a case by case basis as part of any investigation. That’s said within those age ranges, depending where you are you can both pass the age of consent and age of majority. As people age towards adulthood we should increase their responsibility and accountability particularly when they hurt someone. Sexual harassment isn’t this fluffy, “nothing” thing where other children didn’t get hurt.

Dude, the amount of people that want some boys to go to jail for what amounts to a doodle using advanced drawing technology is crazy. Glad to see some sanity left in the world.

Are you trying to argue they’re either not kids, or not dumb? Because otherwise this sounds like a perfectly accurate characterization.

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