Reddit bans impersonation, except if it is satire

[Shawn Knight]

The big picture: Banning impersonation may seem like a no-brainer but if we’re being straightforward, all that Reddit is really doing here is giving itself a bit more leeway with regard to making judgement calls in the near future.

Reddit this week took a firmer stance against one of the rarer reported classes of incidents on the platform: impersonation.

With issues of great public significance like the 2020 US presidential election looming later this year, Reddit is using the opportunity to better cover some use cases it has already seen and some that might crop up in the future.

Actionable Content Policy Violations: Relative Volume by Rule Category

Examples of more commonly seen impersonation include users pretending to be someone else, Reddit said, but isn’t limited to this narrow scope. The platform has also witnessed fake articles falsely attributed to real journalists, fake communications claiming to have originated from legitimate agencies and scammy domains attempting to pose as the real deal.

Reddit is also gearing up for more of what might be in the pipeline, like deepfakes of politicians or other content that misleads.

Do not impersonate an individual or entity

Reddit does not allow content that impersonates individuals or entities in a misleading or deceptive manner. This not only includes using a Reddit account to impersonate someone, but also encompasses things such as domains that mimic others, as well as deepfakes or other manipulated content presented to mislead, or falsely attributed to an individual or entity. While we permit satire and parody, we will always take into account the context of any particular content.

Reddit isn’t going full bore with its impersonation ban, however; the platform will still allow satirical work that isn’t meant to be malicious.

Again, with the election season looming and so much at stake on the political landscape, Reddit and other social platforms are going to have their hands full this fall.

Masthead credit: Masked man by beeboys

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/83501-reddit-bans-impersonation-except-if-satire.html

 

[pcnthuziast]

Morbidly I am very excited to see deep fakes being weaponized and wreaking havoc in the world.

 

[Lew Zealand]

People faked photos and other people learned not to trust them implicitly.
People faked audio and other people learned not to trust it implicitly.

Now it's video's turn. No big deal.

 

[captaincranky]

Reddit isn’t going full bore with its impersonation ban, however; the platform will still allow satirical work that isn’t meant to be malicious.</p>

<p>Again, with the election season looming and so much at stake on the political landscape, Reddit and other social platforms are going to have their hands full this fall.....[ ]....

This sort of tracks copyright law. You can copy a song, add different lyrics as long as it's obvious it's satire.

"Weird Al" Yankovic, made a career out of this, and came up with some really comical material in the process. (Although I have to assume some backroom deals were likely to have been made over the rights to the material).

Here's his "Star Wars" send up, played over top of Don Mclean's "American Pie"

Here's Mr Mclean doing the original if anyone needs a point of reference.

 

[mbrowne5061]

This sort of tracks copyright law. You can copy a song, add different lyrics as long as it's obvious it's satire.

"Weird Al" Yankovic, made a career out of this, and came up with some really comical material in the process. (Although I have to assume some backroom deals were likely to have been made over the rights to the material).

Here's his "Star Wars" send up, played over top of Don Mclean's "American Pie"

Here's Mr Mclean doing the original if anyone needs a point of reference.

He also respects the original artist's wishes if they say 'no' to his parody. This is why you've never seen him parody Prince and (I think) The Beatles; the artists and/or their estates keep turning him down.

 

[captaincranky]

He also respects the original artist's wishes if they say 'no' to his parody. This is why you've never seen him parody Prince and (I think) The Beatles; the artists and/or their estates keep turning him down.

Something I alluded to in paragraph two.

It would though, likely fall under the category of "fair use". But then again, we have armies swarms of lawyers wheeling about overhead, simply drooling over the prospect of feeding on that fat juicy carcass