Update: After this article was published, Bluesky restored Kabas' post and told 404 Media the following: "This was a case of our moderators applying the policy for non-consensual AI content strictly. After re-evaluating the newsworthy context, the moderation team is reinstating those posts."
Bluesky deleted a viral, AI-generated protest video in which Donald Trump is sucking on Elon Musk’s toes because its moderators said it was “non-consensual explicit material.” The video was broadcast on televisions inside the office Housing and Urban Development earlier this week, and quickly went viral on Bluesky and Twitter.
Independent journalist Marisa Kabas obtained a video from a government employee and posted it on Bluesky, where it went viral. Tuesday night, Bluesky moderators deleted the video because they said it was “non-consensual explicit material.”
Other Bluesky users said that versions of the video they uploaded were also deleted, though it is still possible to find the video on the platform.
Technically speaking, the AI video of Trump sucking Musk’s toes, which had the words “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING” shown on top of it, is a nonconsensual AI-generated video, because Trump and Musk did not agree to it. But social media platform content moderation policies have always had carve outs that allow for the criticism of powerful people, especially the world’s richest man and the literal president of the United States.
For example, we once obtained Facebook’s internal rules about sexual content for content moderators, which included broad carveouts to allow for sexual content that criticized public figures and politicians. The First Amendment, which does not apply to social media companies but is relevant considering that Bluesky told Kabas she could not use the platform to “break the law,” has essentially unlimited protection for criticizing public figures in the way this video is doing.
Content moderation has been one of Bluesky’s growing pains over the last few months. The platform has millions of users but only a few dozen employees, meaning that perfect content moderation is impossible, and a lot of it necessarily needs to be automated. This is going to lead to mistakes. But the video Kabas posted was one of the most popular posts on the platform earlier this week and resulted in a national conversation about the protest. Deleting it—whether accidentally or because its moderation rules are so strict as to not allow for this type of reporting on a protest against the President of the United States—is a problem.
I seem to be in the minority here, but I am extremely uncomfortable the idea of non-consensual AI porn of anyone. Even people I despise. It’s so unethical that it just disgusts me. I understand why there are exceptions for those in positions of power, but I’d be more than happy to live in a world where there weren’t.
I agree with you.
However...there's an argument to be made that the post itself is a form of criticism and falls under the free speech rules where it regards political figures. In many ways, it's not any different than the drawings of Musk holding Trump's puppet strings, or Putin and Trump riding a horse together. One is drawn and the other is animated, but they're the same basic concept.
I understand however that that sets a disturbing precedent for what can and cannot be acceptable. But I don't know where to draw that line. I just know that it has to be drawn somewhere.
I think...and this is my opinion...political figures are fair game for this, while there should be protections in place for private citizens, since political figures by their very ambition put themselves in the public sphere whereas private individuals do not.
In my opinion, public figures, including celebrities, give a degree of consent implicitly by seeking to be public figures. I dont think that for celebrities that should extend to lewd or objectionable material, but if your behavior has been to seek being a public figure you can't be upset when people use your likeness in various ways.
For politicians, I would default to "literally everything is protected free speech", with exceptions relating to things that are definitively false, damaging and unrelated to their public work.
"I have a picture of Elon musk engaging in pedophillia" is all those, and would be justifiably removed. Anything short of that though should be permitted.
Where do you draw the line for the rich fucks of the world? Realistic CGI? Realistic drawings? Edited photos?
This is what I was thinking about myself. Because we're cool with political caricatures, right?
I guess the problem is that nobody wants to feature in non-consensual AI porn. I mean if you'd want to draw me getting shafted by Musk, that'd be weird, but a highly realistic video of the same event, that would be hard to explain to the missus.
Assuming you’re asking out of genuine curiosity, for me personally, I’d draw the line somewhere along “could this, or any frame of this, be mistaken for a real depiction of these people?” and “if this were a depiction of real children, how hard would the FBI come down on you?”
I understand that that’s not a practical way of creating law or moderating content, but I don’t care because I’m talking about my personal preference/comfort level. Not what I think should be policy. And frankly, I don’t know what should be policy or how to word it all in anti-loopholes lawyer-speak. I just know that this sucking toes thing crosses an ethical line for me and personally I hate it.
Putting it more idealistically: when I imagine living in utopia, non-consensual AI porn of people doesn’t exist in it. So in an effort to get closer to utopia, I disapprove of things that would not exist in an utopia.
In this case, it's clearly a form of speech and therefore protected under the 1st amendment.
I also don't understand such a strong reaction to non-consensual AI porn. I mean, I don't think it's in good taste but I also don't see why it warrants such a strong reaction. It's not real. If I draw a stick figure with boobs and I put your name on it, do you believe I am committing a crime?
Protected from government censorship. Companies have strong protections allowing for controlling the speech on their platforms.
And if you asked Roberts he'd probably say since companies are people, as long as it's used to protect conservatives they have protection for controlling their platforms speech as a 1st amendment right.
I agree. I've thought about it a lot and I still don't have any sympathy for them after the harm they've caused. I see why it's news worthy enough they might reverse it, and why it would be political speech.
But also I think they made the right choice to take it down. If blsky wants to be the better platform, it needs to be better. And not having an exception for this is the right thing.
Anything bad that happens to a conservative is good. The world will only get better if they are made to repeatedly suffer.
No, we cannot think like that. It is true that fascism cannot be beat peacefully, but we should never want them to suffer. We should always strive to crush their fascist oligarchy with as little suffering ss possible.
"Whoever would be a slayer of monsters must take heed, or they may become the very monsters they slay... For when one peers into the abyss, the abyss peers back into thee" -FN
No, we should, actually. It's what they want for others and is the only way they might come to an understanding with what's wrong with them.
Sympathy for the fascists is almost equal to support of them afaic
They don't believe anything they aren't experiencing first hand is actually a problem.
As much as I don't like it, they have clearly made their own personal suffering a prerequisite for any solutions being allowed to move forward
This is true. We should rapidly give them a lead injection, rather than have them suffer.
In my country the laws about publishing photos etc are different for anyone an "people of public interest". So yeah imo it should be okay to create cartoons or whatever of politicians without their permission - not porn ofc. Including ai generated stuff, but that one should be marked as such , given how realistic it is now