Configuring Fakes: Digitized Bodies, the Politics of Evidence, and Agency

This comparative case study analysis used more than 200 examples of audiovisual manipulation collected from 2016 to 2021 to understand manipulated audiovisual and visual content produced by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and unsophisticated methods. This article includes a chart that categorizes the methods used to produce and disseminate audiovisual content featuring false personation as well as the harms that result. The article and the findings therein answer questions surrounding the broad issues of politics of evidence and harm related to audiovisual manipulation, harassment, privacy, and silencing to offer suggestions towards reconfiguring the public’s agency over technical systems and envisioning ways forward that meaningfully promote justice.