LJ5

                        Final Journal

             With the development of social media and image sharing along with the development of AI images, the culture around pictures has shifted. More than ever it is difficult to trust what you see on social media and the internet. Images could be altered in any number of ways and it could be impossible to tell the difference. The implications of this are large and it is unfathomable the damage that could be done with it. It also has it's uses of course, without a doubt can things be improved and streamlined with the developing technologies. 

            One concerning notion that does come to mind is the use of deepfake images. Deepfakes are essentially extremely well rendered altered videos and photos, inserting people into photos and videos that were never actually there. The most clear and damaging form of this is deepfake porn. Pornographic content that has the faces of other people inserted on to the actors in videos. The implications of this are obvious, hurting career development, hurting personal relationships, and violating people that never consented. There is no inherent legislation or laws made around this yet due to how new it is as well as how slow politics move. On a federal level this hasn't been handled yet, ability to bring charges against people who create it are few and far between and rely on state laws that may not even explicitly refer to this content. 

    TikTok is an interesting talking point at the moment. It feels as though it's become less of a safety issue and some sort of political move, exactly how, I'm not sure. I've been aware of it being removed from goverment employee phones for a while as I have a good friend who works for the government. He advised me personally to remove it from my personal devices due to it's spyware capabilities. I am guilty of having it remain on my phone. My personal feelings towards lack of privacy are often apathetic as I don't have anything to hide and I don't have any trade or life-changing secrets to hide from any government. I should probably be more concerned but I lack the energy for it as I'm a college student who is already aware of the fact that we are likely always being listened to. So what do I care? Spy on me, see how boring I really am.