1.媒体来源：Gizmodo
2.记者署名：ByShoshana Wodinsky
3.完整新闻标题：
Deepfakes Maybe Not Quite the Political Apocalypse We Feared, MIT Researchers
Find
麻省理工学院的研究人员发现，Deepfake所带来的，可能并非我们所担心的政治劫难那般
4.完整新闻内文:
Ever since we’ve seen deepfakes cropping up across porn, e-commerce, and
literal bank robberies, there’s always been concern that this same tech
could be used to interfere with future elections. Well, according to one new
study, that might be tougher than we thought. Researchers from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have put out a new report
investigating whether political video clips might be more persuasive than
their textual counterparts, and found the answer is... not really.
自从我们看到 Deepfake 被用于色情、电商和银行抢案后，人们一直担心这种技术可能会
被拿来干涉选举。然而，根据一项最新的研究，那可能比我们想像的更为困难。近期，麻
省理工学院（MIT）针对“政治性质的影片，是否会比文字更具有说服力？”这个问题提
出了一项研究，结果其实不然。
“Concerns about video-based political persuasion are prevalent in both
popular and academic circles, predicated on the assumption that video is more
compelling than text,” the researchers wrote in their paper. This is a point
we’ve heard again and again from lawmakers over the years, ever since
deepfakes first popped up on their radar in mid-2019. When Sens. Rob Portman
(R-OH) and Gary Peters (D-MI) introduced the Deepfake Taskforce Act this past
summer, Portman noted in a statement that deepfakes posed a “unique threat”
to national security.
研究中指出“大众和学术界都很担心（Deepfake 的）政治宣传影片，但这个疑虑成立的
前提是，‘影片’这种媒介会比文本更具影响力。”自从 Deepfake 于 2019 年年中问世
以来，我们一次又一次地从立法者那里听到类似的论点。去年夏天，当共和党的 Sens.
Rob Portman 和民主党的 Gary Peters 携手推动《Deepfake 专法》（Deepfakes
Taskforce Act）时，Portman 便在声明中指出，“Deepfake 已经对国家安全构成了‘独
特的威胁’”。
“For most of human history seeing meant believing, but now that is becoming
less and less true thanks to deepfakes,” Portman said at the time. “
Combined with the network effects created by social media, fake videos or
pictures can travel around the world in an instant, tricking citizens.”
“在人类的大部分历史里，我们深信着‘眼见为凭’，但因为 Deepfake 的出现，这种想
法可能越来越不可靠。”Portman 表示“结合社群媒体建构而成的网络扩散效应，假影片
或假图片可以瞬间传遍世界，借此用来欺骗公民。”
To gauge how effective this tech would be at tricking anyone, the MIT team
conducted two sets of studies, involving close to 7,600 participants total
from around the U.S. Across both studies, these participants were split into
three different groups. In some cases, the first was asked to watch a
randomly selected “politically persuasive” political ad (you can see
examples of what they used here), or a popular political clip on covid-19
that was sourced from YouTube. The second group was given a transcription of
those randomly selected ads and clips, and the third group was given, well,
nothing at all since they were acting as the control group.
为了衡量 Deepfake 这项技术在骗人方面的效果，麻省理工学院的团队进行了两组研究，
包含来自美国各地的 7,600 多名受试者。在这两组研究中，这些受试者被分为三组，给
第一组观看那些极具政治渲染力的广告、或是在 YouTube 上跟 COVID-19 有关的政治影
片；第二组则给他们阅读上面那些广告和影片的文字稿；第三组则做为对照组，什么都没
给他们看。
After that, each member of each group was given a questionnaire asking them
to rate the “believability” of the message they saw or read—specifically,
whether they believed the people in the clip actually made a particular
claim. Then they were asked to rate how much they disagreed with the core
point from whatever persuasive ad they were seeing.
之后，每位受试者都会收到一份问卷，要求他们对刚刚看到、或阅读到的讯息之“可信度
”进行评分——特别是，他们是否相信影片中的人所提出的主张或政策。然后，他们被要
求针对刚刚看到那些宣传广告的核心主题，给出认同或不认同的评分。
The question these MIT researchers were trying to answer was twofold: Was
seeing actually believing, the way Portman (and countless others) have said?
And if it is, how much could someone’s opinion actually be swayed by video,
or by text?
MIT 的研究人员试图回答两个层次的问题：
人们看到什么，就会真的相信什么吗（这也是 Portman和无数人的说法）？
如果上述假设为真，那人们的意见真的会因为影片或是文字而动摇吗？
The result? “Overall, we find that individuals are more likely to believe an
event occurred when it is presented in video versus textual form,” the study
reads. In other words, the results confirmed that, yes, seeing was believing,
as far as the participants were concerned. But when the researchers dug into
the numbers around persuasion, the difference between the two mediums was
barely noticeable, if at all.
结果，该研究指出“整体来说，我们发现当讯息以影片与文本为媒介呈现时，人们更有可
能相信事情是真的”。换句话说，结果证实，就受试者而言，眼见还真的可以为凭。但是
当研究人员深入研究这个“事实”所带来的说服效果时，影片与文字两种媒介之间的差异
几乎不显著。
As one of the researchers behind the project, Adam Berinsky, noted in a
statement about the work, “[J]ust because video is more believable doesn’t
mean that it can change people’s minds.”
作为该计画的研究人员之一，Adam Berinsky 指出“即使人们会去相信影片的内容，这也
不意味着影片的内容真的可以改变人们的想法。”
Of course, this study (like all academic studies) comes with a fair share of
caveats. For one, even though 7,600 people is a pretty large sample size, it
might not capture the full range of opinions that every American voter might
have. And as the researchers point out in their piece, the small persuasive
advantage that video has over text might actually be even smaller outside of
a research environment:
当然，这项研究（与所有学术研究一样）也有相当多的侷限。尽管 7,600 人已经是一个
相当大的样本数，但仍可能无法涵盖每个美国选民的意见。正如研究人员在他们的文章中
指出的那样，在研究环境之外，实际上影片相对于文本的说服优势可能更小：
"In both of our studies, the text-based treatments were presented in the form
of a detailed transcript containing an exact replication of the audio output
as well as a comprehensive description of key visual cues. In reality,
politically persuasive writing may be structured quite differently (e.g., as
a news article or opinion piece)."
“在我们的两项研究中，我们（给予第二个实验组）的文字稿均包含了仔细的声音资讯以
及影片关键帧的详细描述。但在日常生活里，政治宣传的文章可能和影片逐字稿有不同的
结构（例如，新闻文章或评论文章绝对不会是逐字稿）。”
But even if that’s the case, the study notes that information presented over
video has a unique advantage that text simply doesn’t: A video is more
attention-grabbing and can capture more of an audience than a written report
ever could.
不过即使是这样，该研究仍然指出，透过影片呈现的资讯，还是有相较于以文字为载体所
没有的优势：与单纯的文章相比，影片可以吸引更多的受众。
“It’s possible that in real life things are a bit different,” David Rand,
one of the other authors on the study, noted in a statement.
“在现实生活中，情况可能会有所不同”该研究的作者之一 David Rand 指出。
“It’s possible that as you’re scrolling through your newsfeed, video
captures your attention more than text would,” he added. “You might be more
likely to look at it. This doesn’t mean that video is inherently more
persuasive than text—just that it has the potential to reach a wider
audience.”
“当你在浏览新闻时，影片可能比文字更能吸引你的注意力，”他补充“你可能更倾向选
择观看影片，但这并不意味着影片会比文字更具说服力——只是影片可能会有更高的触及
率而已。”
In other words: At least as far as this study is concerned, deepfake videos
of a given politician aren’t likely to sway people’s political views more
than a fake news report about that same politician. The only advantage that
video might have is whether you believe what you’re seeing in front of you—
and the number of eyeballs that clip might eventually get.
换句话说，至少就这项研究而言，政治人物的 Deepfake 影片不太可能比假新闻更能影响
人们的政治观点。 影片可能具有的唯一优势在于高点阅率，如此而已。
5.完整新闻连结 (或短网址):
https://gizmodo.com/deepfakes-maybe-not-quite-the-political-apocalypse-we-f-1848090462
https://tinyurl.com/3k7z56bv
6.备注:
简单来说呢，要成立许多政治人物所说“Deepfake 可能被用于伪造政治宣传或政策，导
致选民傻傻的相信这些错误资讯，很可怕！”的前提是
1. 人们真的会因为看到 Deepfake 影片，就去相信影片里的政治人物有讲过那些话。
2. 并且因为看了这些影片，进而改变自己的政治想法。
但研究显示，即使人们可能会相信亲眼看到的影片（前提 1 成立），也不一定会因此改
变自己的想法（前提 2 不成立）。单就政治影响力上，Deepfake 确实很可怕，但不一定
比假新闻还要严重，也没有多数人讲的那么可怕，宛如政宣界的浩劫一般。
不过，撇除作为政治宣传的工具，Deepfake 还是有性暴力、性骚扰以及诈欺的问题，这
些仍是该技术的隐忧之一。
对这研究有兴趣的可以去啃 MIT 的论文：
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/47/e2114388118
https://psyarxiv.com/r5yun/
Wittenberg, Chloe, Ben M. Tappin, adam berinsky, and David G. Rand. 2020.
“The (minimal) Persuasive Advantage of Political Video over Text.”
PsyArXiv. February 19. doi:10.31234/osf.io/r5yun.