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Why don't social media and the web in general implement asymmetric key signing to always be able to verify the source of a content, thus eliminating the risk of deep fakes and fake news? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 week ago by linucs@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Am I oversimplifying stuff too much?

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[–] qprimed@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

But the signature can't really guarantee the truthfulness of the content. I could make a signed post that claiming that the Earth is flat.

important point, but in a federated or distributed system, ~~this~~ signed posts/comments may actually be highly beneficial ~~for~~ when tying content directly to an account for interaction purposes. I have already seen well-ish known accounts seemingly spoofed on similar looking instance domains.

distribution of trusted public keys would be an interesting problem to address but the ability to confirm the association of a specific account to specific content (even if the account is "anonymous" and signing is optional) may lend a layer ~~to~~ of veracity to interactions even if the content quality itself is questionable.

edit: clarity (and potential case in point - words matter, edits matter).

[–] lily33@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Sure, but that has little to do with disinformation. Misleading/wrong posts don't usually spoof the origin - they post the wrong information in their own name. They might lie about the origin of their "information", sure - but that's not spoofing.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Misleading/wrong posts don’t usually spoof the origin - they post the wrong information in their own name.

You could argue that that’s because there’s no widely-accepted method for verifying sources—if there were, information relayed without a verifiable source might come to be treated more skeptically.

[–] lily33@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

No, that's because social media is mostly used for informal communication, not scientific discourse.

I guarantee you that I would not use lemmy any differently if posts were authenticated with private keys than I do now when posts are authenticated by the user instance. And I'm sure most people are the same.

Edit: Also, people can already authenticate the source, by posting a direct link there. Signing wouldn't really add that much to that.