On this week’s episode of Stay Tuned, “Misinformation Apocalypse,” Preet answers listener questions about:

• Grand jury rules, and speculation that a grand jury declined to indict former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
• The D.C. Court of Appeals’ ruling preventing the House Judiciary Committee from enforcing its subpoena for Don McGahn’s testimony 
• Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times Company
• Super Tuesday predictions and punditry

The guest is Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert and a professor at University of California, Berkeley. Farid is at the forefront of the race to develop technology that can detect visual, audio, and video manipulation. With the recent rise of AI-based fakes, also known as “deepfakes,” Farid is part of a small team of analysts creating new techniques to assist with the identification of fake content.  

As always, tweet your questions to @PreetBharara with hashtag #askpreet, email us at [email protected], or call 669-247-7338 to leave a voicemail.

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REFERENCES & SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS

THE Q&A 

ANDREW MCCABE

• “Andrew McCabe, Ex-F.B.I. Official, Will Not Be Charged in Lying Case,” New York Times, 2/14/20
• “On the Mystery of the McCabe Grand Jury,” Lawfare, 9/13/19
• The Grand Jury, Legal Information Institute 

MCGAHN DECISION

• The decision in House Committee on the Judiciary v. Donald F. McGahn, 2/28/20
• “Court of Appeals Decision Amounts to a Constitutional Earthquake,” CNN, 3/2/20
• “Dems tread cautiously on investigations after impeachment,” Politico, 3/1/20

NYT LAWSUIT

• Discovery, “How Courts Work,” American Bar Association
• Trump campaign libel lawsuit filing, 2/26/20
• “Trump Campaign Sues New York Times for Libel,” New York Times, 2/26/20
• “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo,” New York Times, 3/27/19
• “Trump’s curious lawsuit against the New York Times,” National Review, 2/28/20
• “Trump 2020 Sues ‘Washington Post,’ Days After ‘N.Y. Times’ Defamation Suit,” National Public Radio, 3/3/20

THE INTERVIEW

• “Deepfakes Are Getting Better, But They're Still Easy to Spot,” Wired, 5/2619 
• “Fake-porn videos are being weaponized to harass and humiliate women: ‘Everybody is a potential target,’” Washington Post, 12/30/18
• Faux Rogan

PELOSI “SHALLOWFAKE”

•  “Speaker Pelosi at CAP Ideas Conference,” C-SPAN, 5/22/19
• “Distorted Videos of Nancy Pelosi Spread on Facebook and Twitter, Helped by Trump,” New York Times, 5/24/19

LEE HARVEY OSWALD

•  Srivamshi Pittala, Emily Whiting, Hany Farid: A 3-D Stability Analysis of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Backyard Photo (2009)
• “Settling the Controversy Over Photo of Lee Harvey Oswald,” Dartmouth News, 10/19/15

YOUTUBE & CONSPIRACY VIDEOS

• Marc Faddoul, Guiilaume Chaslot, and Hany Farid: A longitudinal analysis of YouTube’s promotion of conspiracy videos (2020)
• “Can YouTube Quiet Its Conspiracy Theorists?,” New York Times, 3/2/20
• “Pizzagate: From rumor, to hashtag, to gunfire in D.C.,” Washington Post, 12/6/16
• “5 Theories About Conspiracy Theories,” New York Mag, 2/6/20

REGULATING TECH COMPANIES

• Watch: House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Hearing on Online Imposters and Disinformation, 9/26/19
• 47 U.S. Code § 230, a provision of the Communications Decency Act: Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material
• Telecommunications Act of 1996
• “What is GDPR, the EU’s new data protection law?,” GDPR.EU
• “Silicon Valley Heads to Europe, Nervous About New Rules,” New York Times, 2/16/20
• “Europe Is Toughest on Big Tech, Yet Big Tech Still Reigns,” New York Times, 11/11/19
• “Two New California Laws Tackle Deepfake Videos in Politics and Porn,” David Wright Tremaine Blog, 10/11/19

THE BUTTON

• “James Lipton, ‘Inside the Actors Studio’ Host, Dies at 93,” New York Times, 3/2/20
• Inside the Actors Studio, Bravo TV