Facebook has elected not to remove a ‘deep-fake’ video of Mark Zuckerberg confessing to stealing people’s data.
The short video, posted to Instagram, appears to be the Facebook boss speaking on a news broadcast.
“Imagine this for a second: One man, with total control of billions of people’s stolen data, all their secrets, their lives, their futures. I owe it all to Spectre. Spectre showed me that whoever controls the data, controls the future,” Zuckerberg says in the video.
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByaVigGFP2U/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again
The gimmick has been created by artists Barnaby Francis (aka Bill Posters) and Daniel Howe in partnership with Israeli advertising startup CannyAI as part of a commissioned art installation in the UK called Spectre.
The event includes similar deep-fake videos of well-known figures like Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump with the aim to explore the power of the digital influence industry.
And while many would have expected Facebook to take down the video, the company has set a precedent when it comes to these matters.
Last month, a doctored video of US house speaker Nancy Pelosi began circulating on the web.
The video depicted Pelosi stumbling through her words in a way that made her appear perhaps drunk or ill.
Unfortunately for Pelosi, the video was shared by one world leader with a particularly large social media following.
“PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE” pic.twitter.com/1OyCyqRTuk
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2019
Facebook said at the time it would not remove the video, as the platform does not have a policy that dictates the removal of false information.
It did de-rank the video from News Feeds and add a disclaimer to the video which directed viewers to resources that explained the clip was fake, but ultimately refused to take down the video.
In the process of explaining why the video would not be removed from the platform, Facebook’s director of public policy literally said if there was a similar video of Zuckerberg it would not be taken down.
According to reports in The Verge, Facebook has said it will treat the Zuckerberg video the exact same way and not remove it.
