ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews four examples of deepfakes and cheapfakes in geopolitical conflict to discuss the politics of evidence surrounding audiovisual content. To illustrate the mechanisms by which the politics of evidence are enacted in the examples provided, this chapter draws out four types of epistemic burden found in the discourse around audiovisual fakes. This chapter draws out the following types of burden: (1) misdirection around the potential harms to democracy; (2) compounding difficulty in redressing those harms for those who are most vulnerable to harms; (3) blaming people for their poor interpretation of audiovisual evidence; and (4) the provision technical solutions that exonerate powerful entities for their political economic stake in creating and sustaining structural problems. The chapter concludes that there are numerous ways that much of the discourse around post-truth impedes meaningful change that would be useful to those who most need transformation in these sociotechnical spheres.
