经济学人下载:换脸技术被用来诽谤女性政客(2)

Similar tactics are used to deter women from running for public office. In the run-up to elections in Iraq last year, two female candidates were humiliated with explicit videos, which they say were faked. One pulled out of the race. The types of image used to degrade women vary from place to place. In Myanmar, where antipathy towards Muslims is widespread, detractors of Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto leader, circulated a photo manipulated to show her wearing a hijab. By contrast in Iran, an Islamist theocracy, a woman was disqualified from taking the seat she had won when a photo, which she claims is doctored, leaked showing her without one.
类似的策略也被用来阻止女性竞选公职。在去年伊拉克大选的准备阶段，两名女性候选人被用露骨的视频羞辱，她们说这些视频是伪造的。其中一人退出竞选。用来贬低女性的图像类型因地而异。在对穆斯林普遍反感的缅甸，对该国实际领导人昂山素季的诋毁者传播了一张伪造的照片，显示她戴着头巾。相比之下，在伊斯兰教神权国家伊朗，一名妇女被剥夺了她所赢得的席位，因为一张她声称是伪造的照片泄露了，显示她没有照片。

High-tech sexual slander has not replaced the old-fashioned sort, which remains rife wherever politicians and their propagandists can get away with it. In Russia, female dissidents are dubbed sexual deviants in pro-Kremlin media. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has joked about showing a pornographic video of a female opponent, which she says is a fake, to the pope.
高科技的性诽谤并没有取代老式的诽谤，在任何地方，只要政客和他们的宣传者能够逃脱惩罚，这种诽谤就会盛行。在俄罗斯，持不同政见者被亲克里姆林宫的媒体称为性变态。在菲律宾，总统罗德里戈···杜特尔特开玩笑说要向教皇展示一名女性对手的色情视频，她说这是假的。

Stamping out the problem altogether will be impossible. Anyone can make a deepfake sex video, or hire someone to do it, for a pittance, and then distribute it anonymously. Politicians will inevitably be targets. Laws against libel or invasion of privacy may deter some abuses, but they are not much use when the perpetrator is unknown. Reputable tech firms will no doubt try to remove the most egregious content, but there will always be other platforms, some of them hosted by regimes that actively sow disinformation in the West.
彻底解决这个问题是不可能的。任何人都可以制作一段深度伪造的性爱视频，或者雇人制作，然后匿名发布。政客将不可避免地成为目标。反诽谤或侵犯隐私的法律可能会阻止一些侵权行为，但如果作恶者不明，这些法律就没什么用了。有信誉的科技公司无疑会试图删除最恶劣的内容，但总会有其他的平台，其中一些是由政权托管的，这些政权积极地在西方散布虚假信息。

So the best defence against sexual lies is scepticism. People should assume that videos showing female politicians naked or having sex are probably bogus. Journalists should try harder to expose the peddlers of fake footage, rather than mindlessly linking to it. Some day, one hopes, voters may even decide that it is none of their business what public figures look like under their clothes, or which consenting adults they sleep with.
所以对性谎言最好的防御就是怀疑。人们应该认为，女性政客裸体或做爱的视频可能是假的。记者们应该更努力地揭露那些兜售假镜头的人，而不是盲目地去链接。有一天，公众人物不穿衣服是什么样子，或者他们与哪些自愿的成年人睡觉，选民们应该认为这些都与他们无关。