[HN Gopher] YouTube Bans True Crime Videos That Reanimate Dead C...
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       YouTube Bans True Crime Videos That Reanimate Dead Children with AI
        
       Author : rntn
       Score  : 67 points
       Date   : 2024-01-09 19:58 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (gizmodo.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (gizmodo.com)
        
       | anigbrowl wrote:
       | Good thing too. Absolute gutter exploitation, like most of the
       | 'true crime' genre.
        
         | atticora wrote:
         | I disagree. AI is becoming an increasingly important tool for
         | telling stories, and making it harder to tell stories about
         | true crimes and dead children is not a good thing. We need our
         | full range of tools to think about and communicate about these
         | horrors, as much as for anything else.
        
           | nickthegreek wrote:
           | So true. I've never really been able to understand the
           | visceral nature of a childs death in my 40+ years on this
           | earth. Until now, the horrors could never be adequately told,
           | let alone shown by complete amateurs. Luckily we now have
           | notAnExploiter420 to reanimate your dead child to show their
           | well researched hot take and for monetary gain!
        
           | HenryBemis wrote:
           | > tool for telling stories
           | 
           | Yes, i.e. I am thinking of a story that would make a nice
           | children's book, with some keywords (forest, cave, fire,
           | marshmallows, squirrel, etc.) It would be GREAT if I can get
           | some AI machine (currently using Midjourney) to describe a
           | scene, to find an image that would 'improve' the story.
           | 
           | I understand that others above mention "the law", but until
           | the makers of laws react (globally) to prevent from this sh*t
           | happening, we have to use basic human decency.
           | 
           | Also, we don't need to make movies for people who don't want
           | movies to be made. And yes that is a thin line (i.e. we MUST
           | make movies about the holocaust so we never forget - and not
           | listen to people who want this avoided). But the tragedy of a
           | family is a whole different game (and it requires a human
           | with a soul to tell them apart - apparently).
        
         | LiquidPolymer wrote:
         | "True Crime" as a genre is littered with unscrupulous hosts.
         | But not all of it is in the gutter. In fact, some of it
         | produces a public good. I admit I am attracted to these stories
         | and try to choose carefully. If I may - two recommendations:
         | 
         | "My Only Story" - an adult man notices with horror that the man
         | who secretly raped him as a school boy in South Africa is still
         | working as a teacher. He quits his job and starts a podcast
         | about how grooming works and how the school system is letting
         | pupils down. All the while he is trying to expose this man for
         | who he is without being sued - so he has to dance around the
         | man's name. It is riveting. The story unfolds live as he finds
         | more and more fellow students who were victimized willing to go
         | on the record. This leads to naming names.
         | 
         | "The Root Of Evil" which features (in part) a retired Los
         | Angeles homicide detective who believes his surgeon father was
         | behind the famous Black Dahlia murder. He brings receipts. An
         | astonishing amount of historical material is unearthed
         | including cassette tape audio from the 70's.
         | 
         | Story telling is such an integral part of the social
         | experience. Like everything it can be corrupted by greed and
         | bad incentives. Not every True Crime podcast falls into this
         | trap.
        
           | Analemma_ wrote:
           | > "True Crime" as a genre is littered with unscrupulous
           | hosts. But not all of it is in the gutter. In fact, some of
           | it produces a public good.
           | 
           | True crime has a similar problem to, say, commerical fishing.
           | Some of the _early_ stuff was quite good, because the first
           | shows to do it had their pick of complex and narratively
           | satisfying events to be based on. But once the low-hanging
           | fruit was plucked, subsequent shows had no choice but to
           | begin trawling, in the same way that fishermen do when
           | populations run thin. The _demand_ for true crime has
           | considerably outpaced the supply, and hence why newer shows
           | essentially can 't not be bad and dangerous: they have to
           | either invent predators out of thin air or otherwise make
           | mountains out of molehills.
           | 
           | There needs to be like a 30-year moratorium on true crime, to
           | let the "fish stocks" replenish.
        
             | teeray wrote:
             | > The demand for true crime has considerably outpaced the
             | supply
             | 
             | Soon it will go meta: a serial killer hosts a true crime
             | show to create interesting episodes, and then other true
             | crime shows have an episode on that!
        
               | PoignardAzur wrote:
               | I always thought that aspect was the creepiest part of
               | the _Scream_ movies.
               | 
               | Imagine surviving a serial killer, and knowing there are
               | good odds you're going to die at the hands of another
               | copycat killer before you die of old age.
        
               | wharvle wrote:
               | To some extent, those sorts of motifs are a dramatization
               | and personification of _death itself_. A very real threat
               | that 's usually rather immaterial and conceptual, cast as
               | something you can see and touch. And that can chase you
               | down an alley.
               | 
               | Nothing got you today. But something might have! And
               | something _definitely will_ sooner or later. It 's always
               | lurking, it doesn't rest, it's relentless in its mission,
               | and it can strike at any time. If it hasn't taken someone
               | you love, just wait, it will--in fact, it'll take
               | everyone you love, eventually, if you stick around long
               | enough.
               | 
               | You see similar use of the unstoppable-killer with marked
               | victims (achieved via copycats and other trickery in
               | _Scream_ , but it's the same idea) for the purpose of
               | representing other fears, traumas, or threats that have a
               | degree of universality and don't tend to entirely go
               | away, as in _It Follows_. You see this whole thing made
               | perhaps a bit _too_ on-the-nose in works like _Final
               | Destination_ --which is why, I think, you can have
               | endless unstoppable-knife-guy movies and they may retain
               | some appeal, but a little bit of a "cute" very-literal
               | twist on the formula like _Final Destination_ goes a long
               | way; the world only needs so much of that, much as a joke
               | that subverts a particular standard joke-form only works
               | once or twice before it stops being amusing.
               | 
               | The fun thing about the Scream series, when the movies
               | remember it, is that the killer's emulating this
               | fictional trope of an unstoppable and possibly-
               | supernatural-but-not-omnipotent killer _on purpose_ , in
               | "real life", which is good fodder for creative narrative,
               | twists, and well-earned winks at the camera. The movies
               | are meta not because they've arbitrarily chosen to be
               | (though they do choose to lean into it, of course) but
               | because they aren't about these kinds of fictional
               | unstoppable-personification-of-death killers _directly_ ,
               | but about "real people" _doing_ the unstoppable-
               | personification-of-death thing in  "real life", in
               | imitation of film (even in the first one, before the idea
               | of copycats hunting the survivors entered the picture,
               | there's a _particular thing_ done in order to imitate not
               | just a human knife-wielding killer, but specifically this
               | kind of wholly fictional, unkillable death-dealer).
               | 
               | Actually, as with _Final Destination_ , this is another
               | thing the world only needs _so much_ of, for similar
               | reasons--I 'm not sure the market would support a much
               | greater rate of release for this kind of film than we
               | already see. It's not as immediately-played-out, though,
               | less of a one trick pony.
        
               | kikokikokiko wrote:
               | Something like 5 years ago, a "TV show" in Brazil did
               | just that. It was one of those shows that showed the
               | daily police operations, think COPS but "brazilian
               | style", things go hardcore real easy down here. Anyway,
               | it turned out that when the TV producers weren't getting
               | enough of their daily dose of ultra violence to show to
               | the audience, they would go out to the local drug dealers
               | and ask for an eventual brutal murder, or series of
               | murders, to entice the interest of the audience. It seems
               | to have been going on for years before an insider tipped
               | the police about it. Evil has no limits.
        
               | javari wrote:
               | That idea is basically the plot of the show "Based on A
               | True Story".
        
             | ToucanLoucan wrote:
             | As with so many things: the thing itself is not the issue.
             | The problem is the thing started to make money/gain traffic
             | and then everyone and their mother has to jump in and start
             | making derivative versions of it until it's saturated
             | beyond comprehension, none of it makes any money, and they
             | run off to find the next damn thing to rip off.
        
             | datavirtue wrote:
             | There is a huge series covering abducted/missing women. I
             | forget the name right now. They barely scratched the
             | surface. There is no way you could cover them all as the
             | number keeps growing so fast.
        
             | whycome wrote:
             | There's something to be said for advances in
             | storytelling/graphics/quality. The AI reanimation may be
             | too far, but there are other useful storytelling tools.
        
           | tropdrop wrote:
           | Don't forget Robert Durst of _The Jinx_ - an American real
           | estate heir got away with murder for decades. _The Jinx_ was
           | a true crime documentary for which Durst, for some reason,
           | agreed to be interviewed. I don 't want to give away any
           | spoilers, but at some point throughout the interviewing Durst
           | gave himself away and the evidence accrued within the
           | documentary ended up being used to finally put him behind
           | bars for life.
        
       | maerF0x0 wrote:
       | While obviously it can veer off into the morbid and obscene,
       | anyone remember "dramatic reenactment" labels on true crime TV in
       | the 90s? (maybe before too)
       | 
       | But I do think there's a space for communicating with impactful
       | re-enactment and tasteful "redaction" (censor blurs, keeping
       | things off scene, or jumping forward allowing implication to tell
       | the story).
       | 
       | As with all laws, and rules, the enforcement story will tell what
       | the policy actually means.
        
         | bitshiftfaced wrote:
         | I think it's something about recreating a likeness of a victim.
         | A paid actor may look similar to a victim, but not exactly.
         | Their image will evoke a totally different emotion from the
         | victim's friends and family.
        
           | danbruc wrote:
           | The generated girl was white, the actual victim black. Also -
           | after skimming another article - it seems that the child was
           | killed with a knife first and only then was the body put into
           | the oven, maybe in the hope to get rid of the body. This is
           | more like loosely based on a true story then an accurate
           | retelling of events. Also age and name are slightly altered.
        
             | bitshiftfaced wrote:
             | Does that matter? What did you think YouTube has in mind
             | when they say "realistically simulate"? Sometimes you can
             | see a trend coming early on, and isn't YouTube responding
             | to what people will probably do in the future?
        
               | gspencley wrote:
               | > I think it's something about recreating a likeness of a
               | victim.
               | 
               | I'm pretty sure that's what the person you are replying
               | to was commenting on.
               | 
               | If you're just continuing the discussion and talking
               | about whether or not the policy is a good move on
               | YouTube's part, fair enough. But it kind of reads like
               | you're shifting the goal post.
               | 
               | My opinion is that I'm honestly not sure if it "matters"
               | or not. YouTube has every right to make their content
               | policies according to whatever drives them, be it
               | business forces or their own values. As an adult consumer
               | of YouTube I would personally prefer if there were a "as
               | long as it is legal" policy, but I get why YouTube may
               | have reasons to adopt different policies and it's not up
               | to me. I recognize their right to do what they think is
               | best with their business and product.
        
               | bitshiftfaced wrote:
               | The discussion, as I understood it, was about contrasting
               | dramatic reenactments using actors with using digital
               | recreations (i.e. "what makes these two techniques
               | different?"). danbruc was talking about how the digital
               | recreation in the news recently was inaccurate. I was
               | questioning if that mattered, since I wasn't so much
               | contrasting paid actors with that specific case but
               | instead with what new technology now allows and what
               | YouTube is probably trying to prevent with their policy.
        
               | danbruc wrote:
               | I was specifically replying to the following part.
               | 
               |  _A paid actor may look similar to a victim, but not
               | exactly. Their image will evoke a totally different
               | emotion from the victim 's friends and family._
               | 
               | In that specific case the digital recreation - if you can
               | even call it that - was quite off and far from depicting
               | what the real victim looked like. It would certainly have
               | been possible to do an reenactment which more closely
               | matched what the actual victim looked like. Therefore I
               | think any argument along the lines that an exact digital
               | recreation might evoke feelings that a reenactment could
               | not does - at least in this specific case - not apply.
               | 
               | Otherwise I have really no opinion on the entire matter.
               | Putting children into an oven is certainly in the range
               | of things that you could find in horror movies. Context
               | of course matters and also the presentation and intention
               | and target audience, but I just do not know anything
               | besides skimming three articles about this phenomenon to
               | properly judge this.
        
               | kragen wrote:
               | > _Putting children into an oven is certainly in the
               | range of things that you could find in horror movies_
               | 
               | or for that matter popular children's fairy tales
        
           | maerF0x0 wrote:
           | I have to say I think it's more stemming from the court of
           | public opinion's reaction to inappropriate content for
           | kids[1] and also laws that protect kids online.
           | 
           | [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/28/pa
           | rent...
        
           | rnk wrote:
           | What if they are careful to make a fake kid who looks nothing
           | like the original (other than kind of looking like a kid of
           | that age and kind of looking like the same race)? There are
           | dramatic re-enactments. I don't want to see this, but should
           | it be banned? Is it okay if it was done with live actors?
           | What about if they were on "to catch a thief"? What if it was
           | a real drama or a play. What if you wanted to block a
           | shakespeare play that had kids killed in it that was a
           | historical event? Is it only for ai actors?
           | 
           | This is a hard thing to figure out. I'm against true crime
           | repros that are disgusting and pandering, but that's
           | completely personal and ambiguous.
        
         | throwaway4aday wrote:
         | That should be done without appropriating the voice and image
         | of the deceased without permission.
        
           | contravariant wrote:
           | We really ought to start thinking about better privacy rights
           | for the dead. Seems like it would make sense to tie it to the
           | privacy of the next of kin, or something similar, but
           | splitting privacy rights amongst multiple people can get
           | weird.
           | 
           | I mean it is a bit strange that copyright is protected
           | decades after someone died, but privacy is pretty much gone
           | the moment someone breathes their last.
        
           | RecycledEle wrote:
           | > That should be done without appropriating the voice and
           | image of the deceased without permission.
           | 
           | I disagree. If I were in charge, I would encourage factually
           | correct reenactments and ban fake news.
           | 
           | An example is the long time Hollyweird trend of replacing
           | ugly historical figures with beautiful keading people. Bonnie
           | Parker (likely a relative of mine) was not a hottie.
           | Pretending she was distorts the story. Ugly girls who are
           | prodigies live different lives than pretty girls. The current
           | fashion of replacing people of one race with people of
           | another race distorts history. If you want a black leading
           | lady, there are many stories to chose from.
        
         | canucker2016 wrote:
         | Forensic Files, on the Headline News Network - though they seem
         | to have given up on the 'News' part of their programming
         | recently, shows crime reenactments with narration and comments
         | from people related to the episode's incident in question.
        
           | canucker2016 wrote:
           | Looks like someone has uploaded some episodes of Forensic
           | Files, as well as other crime-related shows, to YouTube.
        
             | whycome wrote:
             | I'm pretty sure the rightsholder, Filmrise, makes them all
             | available for free. (At least in Canada)
             | (https://www.youtube.com/@FilmRiseTrueCrime)
             | 
             | It's also cool to see the rightsholder (Cineflix?) of
             | Mayday/Air Crash Investigation put everything up on YouTube
             | for free as well.
             | (https://www.youtube.com/@MaydayAirDisaster)
        
         | allturtles wrote:
         | I'm pretty sure none of those network TV dramatic reenactments
         | had a 2-year-old actor talking about how their grandmother
         | stuffed them in an oven. I think that would have caused a bit
         | of a stir.
        
       | 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
       | Black Mirror covered re-animation of loved ones via AI &
       | robotics:
       | 
       | Be Right Back
       | 
       | Black Mirror: Season 2, Episode 1
        
         | nomel wrote:
         | There are already services for this [1].
         | 
         | This is also how https://replika.ai started [2].
         | 
         | 1. https://news.yahoo.com/ai-takes-on-grief-and-loss-with-
         | new-c...
         | 
         | 2. https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-nature-of-
         | things/after-...
        
         | teekert wrote:
         | One of the best ones of the series if you ask me, and a true
         | insight into the role of human grief.
         | 
         | It's also is an eerily accurate prediction of things now (about
         | 10 years after release) very much possible.
        
         | sudosteph wrote:
         | There's also a great Adult Swim Infomercial satirizing this
         | idea, "Live Forever As you Are Now with Alan Resnick"[1].
         | Apparently it came out the same year as that Black Mirror
         | episode (2013) !
         | 
         | [I]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xg29TuWo0Yo
        
       | rplnt wrote:
       | If you want to see a true crime, try that website on a phone
       | without an ad blocker. Screen-sized ad after every sentence or
       | two.
        
         | qingcharles wrote:
         | And I would hate to see the total payload of the page too for
         | those running with 5GB/month limits on their data.
        
       | thriftwy wrote:
       | In Russia they have passed a law some time ago that you can never
       | post dead children faces in any mass media (so they pixelate or
       | draw over).
       | 
       | I was thinking that it is most stupid law, but now I don't. Oh
       | boy how right these lawmakers were in light of this new
       | development.
        
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