Roasting the Press Episode 28 for Sunday, June 3rd, 2024
Deep Fakes During a Worldwide Election Year, Our Current Court System, Robert De Niro Hates Donald Trump and The Jones Plantation
Tonight’s new media personalities include Freedom Forum editor Chuck Black, independent media commentator Marie Anne and and Mongo Minds Productions owner Richard Gagnon.
Deep Fakes During a Worldwide Election Year
Our first story tonight is all about false deep fakes, actual deep fakes and how to deal with them.
As outlined in the May 30th, 2024 Brookings Institute post, “Watch out for false claims of deepfakes, and actual deepfakes, this election year,” there’s going to be a lot of each, especially during the upcoming US election.
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According to the Brookings post:
Concerns are growing about the social and political impacts of deep fakes and generative AI, leading many to consider the risks during a global election year.
The Brookings post covers a February 20th, 2024 survey from American Political Science Review under the title, “The Liar’s Dividend: Can Politicians Claim Misinformation to Evade Accountability?,” which “addresses the phenomenon of misinformation about misinformation, or politicians “crying wolf” over fake news.”
The study mostly notes that, “yes, politician’s lie,” and now they have a new way to do it. It concludes with the Captain Obvious comment that politicians lie because they benefit from lying.
On the other hand, the May 20th, 2024 Biometric Update post, “AI deepfakes are wreaking havoc on an unprepared financial industry,” notes the strange case of UK based engineering collective Arup, a group of 18,500 designers and consultant, which became the was the target of a “deepfake” attack earlier this year.
During the attack, a digitally cloned AI avatar of the firm CFO and several other executives organized a zoom meeting where they talked company staffers into making 15 different transfers to five Hong Kong bank accounts, totaling HK$200 million.
Police investigations into the attack are ongoing but no arrests have been made and $25Mln USD is still unaccounted for. Arup’s east Asia chair, Andy Lee, stepped down weeks after it occurred.
Everyone, once they have some idea of what’s going on, tend to default to increased government regulations in order to combat the problem.
As outlined in the May 30th, 2024 Tenth Amendment Center post, “From Banks to Big Brother: The Rise of Financial Surveillance,” the US and other western nations have increasingly turned banks and the entire financial industry into a massive surveillance network.
Is this an example of “problem, reaction, solution?” Is this just another opportunity to increase regulation and surveillance in this area?
Only time will tell.
Our Current Court System
Our second tonight is a commentary on the current court system and the techniques of at least one of the programs which focus on the courts.
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An A&E series airing since 2019, “Court Cam” is definitely not a modern day version of the classic 50’s TV series “Perry Mason,” the American legal drama series originally broadcast on CBS television from September 21, 1957, to May 22, 1966.
“Court Cam” explicitly explores the entertainment value and foolishness of modern day “zoom courts” where defendant’s with restricted licenses attend court remotely while driving and court officials remain blissfully unaware of what’s going on, no matter what’s happening.
It’s scary, scary stuff and does no favors to the justice system which “Court Cam“ pretends to chronical.
Robert De Niro Hates Donald Trump
Our third story tonight is all about American actor Robert De Niro and his comments about former president and current presidential candidate, Donald Trump.
Day’s after the 80-year-old movie star has made clear his disdain for the former US president, and as outlined in the June 2nd, 2024 Sky News post, “Robert De Niro has award withdrawn after calling Donald Trump 'monster' outside trial,” the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) decided to rescind an offer to award De Niro with the Leadership Foundation's Service to America Award, which he was set to receive on Tuesday.
Its a confusing time in politics.
For some needed political context, it’s worth looking at the 2023 independent film, “The Jones Plantation,” which notes that “you can control a man with brute violence but you can never truly OWN a man until he's convinced that your word is law, and obedience is a virtue.”
“Roasting the Press,” is an open forum with new media journalists critiquing and complaining about our well funded competitors, the stories they create and the techniques they use.
For more information on the show, or to become a guest host, please send an email to chuck.black@protonmail.com.
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