Table of Contents for A History of Fake Things on the Internet
1.Restyling Reality
This chapter introduces the reader to the general themes of the book. With respect to society's perspectives on reality, a brief review of both the distant and near past is helpful to set the stage for the chapters that follow. While it is tempting to jump right into a discussion of state-generated disinformation, right-wing propaganda, left-wing delusions, and other political matters, these are left to later chapters. Instead, the introduction considers the ways in which the imagination has directed culture over the centuries. Reality has always been shaped by ideas that are projections of the imagination, an essential aspect of our humanity. The imagination's move into information networks is the product of social trends related to what is a fundamental psychological phenomenon. Social technologies have had an outsized impact in recent history, and yet they bear a strong resemblance to some of the oldest known communication mediums.
2.On the Virtual Frontier of the Imagination
Why is there such profound mistrust of the establishment news media? Providing answers to this question is not difficult, but occasionally, one surfaces in the most unexpected place. In this chapter, we reconsider the phenomenon of "fake news" by looking at a remarkable early instance in which computer hackers exploited both broadcast television and the Internet. A common assumption made by journalists, academics, politicians, and other commentators is that fake news is intentionally designed to undermine the truth, as a means to some malicious end, and therefore must always be bad. Yet rarely do we find deep investigations of specific cases, including of the motivations of those involved, the actions behind the scenes, and the long-term outcomes. Here such an investigation is presented, one that reveals fake news to be a powerful medium for myths, especially those created to make critical commentary on the establishment news media.
3.Photoshop Fantasies
The possibility of an altered photo revising history in a convincing way highlights a salient threat of imaging technology. After all, seeing is believing. Or is it? The examples history has preserved make it clear that the observer is more often than not meant to understand that something has changed. Surprisingly, the objectives of photographic manipulation have remained largely the same since the camera first appeared in the nineteenth century. The old battle-tested techniques have simply evolved to keep pace with technological developments. In this chapter, we learn about the history of photographic manipulation, from the invention of the camera to the present. Importantly, we consider the reception of photo editing and its relationship to the notion of reality, which is more significant than the technologies themselves. Once again, mythmaking finds a new medium to embed itself in.
4.Cheat Codes for Life
Computer hacking employed a fair bit of misdirection to achieve its goals. Much of that was disseminated through the textfiles, the primary digital medium hackers were using to communicate information to each other and the public. At the turn of the millennium, the stakes were raised, as the technical content on security vulnerabilities that appeared in the textfiles became increasingly sophisticated. Embedded in the textfiles of this period is the story of the computer-security industry's genesis, including evidence of sharp divisions that fractured the hacking scene. Curiously, one frequently finds as much myth as fact in this material, which is unexpected given the rigorous nature of computer hacking. With information asymmetry in the mix, this led to the new security vulnerability of technical disinformation, which unnerved segments of society reliant on the integrity of information networks.
5.Speculative Sleuths
The provenance of advanced algorithms for the modification of digital images is rarely considered by those outside of computer science. This is surprising, given the intense scrutiny such technology is now under. The basic digital editing operations emerged from the creative arts. But the algorithms that came afterward were sometimes adversarial, incorporating functionality that intentionally obscured evidence of tampering and exploited digital photography in ways no commercial software company would have ever endorsed. Ironically, these algorithms were by and large the invention of the very community charged with preserving the integrity of digital media. The work of these media-forensics specialists frequently relied on mythmaking in order to raise alarm about potential problems with broader trends of image manipulation. Properly contextualized, the forensic analysis of images can be helpful for rooting out harmful information, although not in the sensationalized circumstances we often hear about.
6.Virtualized Horror
In this chapter we visit another dark corner of the Internet where computer hackers played a central role in establishing strategies for fakery: shock-content sites. The material is based on interviews with hackers who were witness to the rise of extreme forms of entertainment in the 1990s and early 2000s, as well as newly collected source material on rotten.com, 4chan, and early business plans for social media. The primary goal is to examine the questions of why shock content is so alluring and whether we should be alarmed by its prevalence on the Internet. Often ignored is the cultural significance of the darker side of humanity on display. What does shock content say about us? Much of it falls within the realm of myth, like the other forms of transgressive material this book considers.
7.Dreams of a Clairvoyant AI
The technological capacity to create fake images has improved drastically since the early days of Photoshop. To alleviate the labor of using traditional computer graphics or image processing, AI researchers have designed a new tool for the automatic production of photorealistic fakes: the generative adversarial network. This specialized form of machine learning is now a drop-in replacement for manual image-editing and synthesis software. In operation, generative adversarial networks have appeared so impressive that computer scientists have made astonishing claims about their predictive capabilities, with implications for the temporal nature of reality that warrant scrutiny. What are the practical limits of this technology? Should we believe the stories an AI tells us about the future, or are they myths from a synthetic imagination? In this chapter we seek to answer these questions and others prompted by this fascinating new technology.
8.Creative Spaces
A good history shouldn't be compiled just to satisfy intellectual curiosity. It should contribute to our understanding of the present and help us make better decisions and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. When it comes to digital fakery, this is especially important, given the recent politicization of such content. However, we don't have as much to fear about fake things on the Internet as many initially assumed. The future won't be completely awful—in fact, it looks pretty good. Instead of turning malicious, most people are finding new ways to communicate, collaborate, and create, through their own storytelling. Entirely new subcultures have been forming on the Internet, some proving to have an overwhelmingly positive influence in the physical world. Immersive virtual worlds, mesmerizing interactive memes, and a robust harmonization between real life and the Internet are just around the corner.