Listen and read 9: Fake news - Thấm Tâm Vy

Nội dung text: Listen and read 9: Fake news - Thấm Tâm Vy

1. LISTEN AND READ 09 antipathy towards Muslims is widespread, detractors of Aung San Suu Kyi, the FAKE NEWS country’s de facto leader, circulated a photo manipulated to show her wearing a Sex, lies and politics hijab. By contrast in Iran, an Islamist theocracy, a woman was disqualified As deepfake technology spreads, expect more bogus sex tapes of female politicians from taking the seat she had won when a photo, which she claims is doctored, leaked showing her without one. High-tech sexual slander has not replaced the Adulterer, pervert, traitor, murderer. In France in 1793, no woman was more old-fashioned sort, which remains rife wherever politicians and their relentlessly slandered than Marie Antoinette. Political pamphlets spread baseless propagandists can get away with it. In Russia, female dissidents are dubbed rumours of her depravity. Some drawings showed her with multiple lovers, male sexual deviants in pro-Kremlin media. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo and female. Others portrayed her as a harpy, a notoriously disagreeable mythical Duterte has joked about showing a pornographic video of a female opponent, beast that was half bird-of-prey, half woman. Such mudslinging served a which she says is a fake, to the pope. In China, mainland-based trolls have political purpose. The revolutionaries who had overthrown the monarchy wanted spread lewd quotes falsely attributed to Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s first female to tarnish the former queen’s reputation before they cut off her head. president. Beijing’s state media say she is “extreme” and “emotional” as a result She was a victim of something ancient and nasty that is becoming worryingly of being unmarried and childless. common: sexualised disinformation to undercut women in public life. People Stamping out the problem altogether will be impossible. Anyone can make a have always invented rumours about such women. But three things have deepfake sex video, or hire someone to do it, for a pittance, and then distribute it changed. Digital technology makes it easy to disseminate libel widely and anonymously. Politicians will inevitably be targets. Laws against libel or anonymously. invasion of privacy may deter some abuses, but they are not much use when the “Deepfake” techniques (manipulating images and video using artificial perpetrator is unknown. Reputable tech firms will no doubt try to remove the intelligence) make it cheap and simple to create convincing visual evidence that most egregious content, but there will always be other platforms, some of them people have done or said things which they have not. And powerful actors, hosted by regimes that actively sow disinformation in the West. including governments and ruling parties, have gleefully exploited these new So the best defence against sexual lies is scepticism. People should assume that opportunities. A report by researchers at Oxford this year found well-organised videos showing female politicians naked or having sex are probably bogus. disinformation campaigns in 70 countries, up from 48 in 2018 and 28 in 2017. Journalists should try harder to expose the peddlers of fake footage, rather than Consider the case of Rana Ayyub, an Indian journalist who tirelessly reports on mindlessly linking to it. Some day, one hopes, voters may even decide that it is corruption, and who wrote a book about the massacre of Muslims in the state of none of their business what public figures look like under their clothes, or which Gujarat when Narendra Modi, now India’s prime minister, was in charge there. consenting adults they sleep with. [The Economist UK, Nov. 09, 2019] For years, critics muttered that she was unpatriotic (because she is a Muslim who criticises the ruling party) and a prostitute (because she is a woman). In Notes: April 2018 the abuse intensified. A deepfake sex video, which grafted her face - bird-of-prey: chim săn mồi over that of another woman, was published and went viral. Digital mobs - to undercut: làm giảm úy tín, danh dự - deepfake: video cắt xén làm giả (để hạ uy tín) threatened to rape or kill her. She was “doxxed”: someone published her home - go viral: lây lan, lan truyền như virus address and phone number online. It is hard to prove who was behind this - be doxxed: bị làm lộ thông tin cá nhân (Cambridge Dictionary 4th) campaign of intimidation, but its purpose is obvious: to silence her, and any - intimidation: hành động dọa dẫm - hijab: khăn trùm của phụ nữ Hồi giáo other woman thinking of criticising the mighty. - theocracy: chế độ cai trị thần quyền Similar tactics are used to deter women from running for public office. In the - be doctored: bị làm giả run-up to elections in Iraq last year, two female candidates were humiliated with - remain rife: vẫn còn lan tràn - libel: lời phỉ báng explicit videos, which they say were faked. One pulled out of the race. The types - egregious: quá mức (xấu, độc hại) of image used to degrade women vary from place to place. In Myanmar, where - bogus = fake: giả TQT LISTEN AND READ 09