Trump, platforms, deepfakes and advertising: 2020 in a nutshell
You're gonna be a (stable) genius anyway
President Donald Trump’s refrain of “Fake News” has been a defining phrase of his administration. He levies it against the press, while at the same time creating his own.
Yesterday, for example, Trump posted a manipulated video to his Twitter. Taking a year-old viral clip of a Black toddler and a white toddler running to hug each other, the video altered the video to make it look like the Black toddler is running away from the white toddler, and embeds a lower-third chyron: “Terrified todler [sic] runs from racist baby. Racist baby probably a Trump voter.”
The video then cuts to the original video, and adds the message “America is not the problem. Fake news is. If you see something, say something. Only you can prevent fake news dumpster fires.” The video was ripped from a Twitter user @carpedonktum, who pushes memes out to its 267k followers. Donald Trump broadcasted it to his 82.2 million followers.
Someone apparently did say something, as Twitter, for the third time in a month appended some type of warning to a tweet from the president’s. For this one, the company added “Manipulated media,” though didn’t take the tweet down.
According to CBS News:
the video was flagged "to give people more context" as part of its synthetic and manipulated media policy. Under the policy, users "may not deceptively promote synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm."
Earlier in the day, Facebook took down a Trump campaign ad campaign of 88 posts that violated the platform’s policy of organized hate. The ads, which used an inverted red triangle the campaign said was used by Antifa (it’s not), reached hundreds of thousands of Facebook users before being taken down, as people realized the inverted triangle was used by Nazis to label concentration camp prisoners.
(Image via United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
In a statement, Facebook said:
Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group's symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol.
Kathryn Harrison, founder and executive director of DeepTrust Alliance, a nonprofit fighting deepfakes and the spread of manipulated information, told me in an email that Trump is doing three things:
1) Doubling down on his undermining and conflict with Twitter/ Media in general to cast doubt on outlets that do not uniformly support him— also galvanizes his base
2) (As usual) Distracting from actual political and policy actions (or inaction)— wide coverage of this event distracts from rising Covid deaths, coup in the public media agencies, continued protests and a host of other things that aren’t going particularly well for him
3) Testing and strengthening where his message gets the most firepower as the election approaches— clearly the more Twitter labels him, the more people read his content and “feel oppressed” by Silicon Valley/ coastal media
As Trump’s come to power, he’s wielded “fake news” as a cudgel against the press, and it’s worked.
In a peer-reviewed paper published by Harvard’s Misinformation Review earlier this month, researchers found that
“online misinformation was linked to lower trust in mainstream media across party lines. However, for moderates and conservatives, exposure to fake news predicted a higher confidence in political institutions. The mostly right-leaning fake news accessed by our moderate-to-conservative respondents could strengthen their trust in a Republican government. This was not true for liberals who could be biased against such content and less likely to believe its claims.”
Posting manipulated videos and dog-whistle meme ads accomplishes two things simultaneously: gets the content in front of core users, but also gets the media coverage engine revving. This is another trademark of the Trump administration: throw so much shit against the wall, but not care what sticks. The goal is distraction.
(Of course, cruelty is also the point.)
Media literacy will be the first line of defense against manipulated media; understanding how to read text matters. While the focus on deepfakes is on the political arena, it’s something for companies to also understand, Harrison said, as there are several implications for businesses.
“Trump’s embrace of memes, doctored videos and deepfakes makes the public more aware, more comfortable and less critical of their use/ content (depending on political views),” Harrison said. “Which means it may be more acceptable for advertisers, media companies to use them — depending on their target audience— not necessarily a bad thing but will take very careful thought about how, when, where, messages, audience, etc.”
She also said that while CNN and Twitter were clearly a target of this video, “other companies may find themselves increasingly targets of fake videos, misuse of their brand, etc as this becomes more widespread and acceptable. Detection and response will be key.”
Thank you for allowing me into your inbox. If you have tips please drop me a line. As we wrap up the 8th week of this dinky newsletter, I’d like to hear your thoughts on it; what’s working, what’s not. What would you like to see more/less of.
One thing I’m thinking about doing in the coming weeks is open up to some guest writers, experts across various areas of the media landscape. I’d also like to do some Q&As with folks at brands, agencies and publishers. I’m also thinking about turning on the subscription model, and I’d love to hear from folks if this is something you’d pay $5-a-month for.
Finally, if you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, please consider sharing on your social platforms. The more people that see it, the more we can start taking these conversations and addressing the systemic challenges the industry faces.
(Also, if you’re in a newsroom and looking for a reporter, editor, manager, whatever, let me know; I’d love to get back to work; I can even bring the Media Nut with me.)
Thanks, and have a great weekend. Happy Juneteenth!
Charles Mingus, “Fables of Faubus”
Some interesting links:
The Burning of Black Wall Street, Revisited (NYT)
Why Juneteenth Matters (NYT)
Ad Agency Encourages Clients to Join Facebook Ad Boycott (WSJ)
He’s 100, a renowned jazz musician and a survivor of Tulsa’s 1921 race massacre (WaPo)
I moved to Asia, got cancer, and then coronavirus happened (CNN)
Vice Media launches probe into Refinery29's toxic work environment (CNN)
‘My biggest risk’: Trump says mail-in voting could cost him reelection (Politico)