On Hacker News yesterday a post about deepfake open source project (news.ycombinator.com/item?id=191…). Triggered a heated discussion among many developers. What happened? Let’s see.

Following the post’s instructions, I tried to access Deepfake’s GitHub repository in incognito mode without logging in. The result is as follows:



▲ Accessing Deepfake’s repository without logging in to GitHubGithub.com/deepfakes/f…)

If you have not logged in to GitHub, you will not be able to access deepfake’s repository and will be redirected to the GitHub login page. But GitHub’s rule has always been that anyone can access and download source code from a public repository, regardless of whether the user is logged in or not. Deepfake has always been a public warehouse, not a private one, so this is unusual.

Because of this move, Deepfake’s restrictions on GitHub were considered a form of censorship by developers. But it’s unclear whether GitHub did this on its own initiative or under pressure from a third party.

In fact, it’s unusual for GitHub to restrict access to open source projects in this form. Although GitHub has publicly acknowledged receiving removal requests from the government (github.com/github/gov-…) But that’s because most of these repositories hosted on GitHub contain sensitive content.

Why does DeepFake, a purely technical open source project, get this treatment? At this point, I’d like to introduce you to Deepfake, but I’m sure you’ll be familiar with it.

Deepfake describes itself on GitHub as a tool that uses deep learning to recognize and exchange images of people’s faces in photos and videos. But more users are using DeepFake as a tool for faking videos — transferring one person’s face onto another, allowing fake videos and news stories to spread easily across the Internet.

Take a look at these giFs. Can you tell the real ones from the fake ones?



▲ This GIF is from a video of a male TV news anchor talking. Is it true?



▲ This anchorwoman, is the video of her speech also real?



▲ What about the male anchor?



▲ Where’s your ten yuan?

These giFs look perfectly normal, but they’re all fake! These people on the GIFs, they’ve never made these mouth movements or expressions. What’s more, fake videos like these have proliferated online in the past two years, mostly using Deepfake’s technology.

Before Deepfake, video face-swapping was mainly used in film filming and required a relatively high level of technical and financial investment. But now, the advent of deep learning technologies such as DeepFake has lowered the bar for face-changing, with users using it not only to create fake news about politicians, but also to create porn about female celebrities.

The dangers of these fake videos and fake news will not be repeated here. Deepfake even alerted the Pentagon last year. They commissioned experts from around the country through the DEFENSE Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to find ways to check the authenticity of various videos. Soon after, DARPA developed an AI tool that automatically detects fake videos of faces being changed, and can spot fake videos with 99 percent accuracy, based on the fact that they typically don’t show blinking, breathing, or eye movements.

Related papers and data sets: arxiv.org/abs/1901.08… Github.com/ondyari/Fac…

In one of the comments on HN’s post, a user named Alexeldeib, who identified himself as a Microsoft employee, wrote: “I believe this action was directed by Microsoft to GitHub, not GitHub’s independent decision. It would be very disappointing if it was a top-down decision rather than the result of an internal decision.”

Others said it was a compromise after GitHub was acquired by Microsoft. But other users immediately replied that the practice existed before the acquisition (github.com/deepfakes/f…) .



▲ Before Microsoft acquired GitHub, users had submitted an issue in deepFake that required a GitHub account to access the project.

Throughout the post, the debate centered on the misuse of technology and the conflict between technology and morality. Of course, there are plenty of comments criticizing GitHub for what they believe is a long history of GitHub’s behavior since it was acquired by Microsoft.

I’d like to end with a comment from one of the users on this post — “I may not agree with what you’re saying, But I will defend to the death your right to create fake celebrity nudity.” But I will defend to the death your right to create fake jobs. “).