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AI

4chan Uses Bing To Flood the Internet With Racist Images (404media.co) 132

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
samleecole writes: 4chan users are coordinating a posting campaign where they use Microsoft Bing's AI text-to-image generator to create racist images that they can then post across the internet. The news shows how users are able to manipulate free to access, easy to use AI tools to quickly flood the internet with racist garbage, even when those tools are allegedly strictly moderated. "We're making propaganda for fun. Join us, it's comfy," the 4chan thread instructs. "MAKE, EDIT, SHARE."

A visual guide hosted on Imgur that's linked in that post instructs users to use AI image generators, edit them to add captions that make them seem like political campaigns, and post them to social media sites, specifically Telegram, Twitter, and Instagram. 404 Media has also seen these images shared on a TikTok account that has since been removed. People being racist is not a technological problem. But we should pay attention to the fact that technology is "to borrow a programming concept" 10x'ing racist posters, allowing them to create more sophisticated content more quickly in a way we have not seen online before. Perhaps more importantly, they are doing so with tools that are allegedly "safe" and moderated so strictly, to a point where they will not generate completely harmless images of Julius Caesar. This means we are currently getting the worst of both worlds from Bing, an AI tool that will refuse to generate a nipple but is supercharging 4chan racists.
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4chan Uses Bing To Flood the Internet With Racist Images More

4chan Uses Bing To Flood the Internet With Racist Images

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  • Based (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05, 2023 @12:42PM (#63902795)

    Based.

  • They're doing the lord's work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ebunga ( 95613 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @12:59PM (#63902867)

    I mean, I would rather it be something that wasn't racist, but they're showing how bad something is by doing the most 4chan thing possible.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      It's not just racism, they try to force the thing to spit porn too.
      I seem a man getting pretty darn close with judy hopps.

      • In the 90s, the 4channers would've been the ones using stolen AOL accounts and a "proggie" that someone else wrote to flood the AOL 'chat rooms' with ascii art swastikas and racist jokes, all the while taunting the "guides" that they will just use another account if that one gets terminated. This behavior isn't new, it's just now on a different platform.

  • With racist agitprop, all roads lead to Moscow. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @01:00PM (#63902871)
    Claiming it's "for fun" is some ripe bullshit. This kind of trash would grind their teeth into dust in fury if they even saw another human being smile without irony.

  • Good. AI is being embraced with faith, not trust. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eepok ( 545733 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @01:04PM (#63902885) Homepage

    Say what you want about 4chan users' methods, but they often have a very good point to make about the absurdity of their targets.

    They've been the source of a significant amount of ridiculous conspiracy theories spread through social media and have exposed that humanity is not smart enough as a whole for social media to be "good". On balance, giving the every single idiot, sociopath, and narcissist access to a communication channel that can reach billions and funding the communication networks with financial systems that reward views/clicks instead of utility has been objectively bad.

    Now, they're showing that publicly available AI is far from intelligent and woefully under-supervised.

    Maybe we can head off THIS disaster.

    • Re:Good. AI is being embraced with faith, not trus (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @01:06PM (#63902893) Journal

      They're racists who somehow think there's some plausible deniability in saying "It's a joke" or "We're just showing a vulnerability."

      I see no reason to buy into the ridiculous excuses these people make, when it's obvious what they really are and what they are really doing.

      • Is a Troll a believer in the viewpoint they put forth?

        • Yes, I think a troll can actually believe in what they're trying to piss people off with. These are not mutually exclusive positions.

        • Quite often they are, yes. That is often WHY they troll. They know their stance pisses people off, and they get off on that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eepok ( 545733 )

        4Chan is a force of idiocy and sometimes mal-intent, but you have to be blinded by ideology if you don't see the utility of their actions. Their philosophies are irrelevant and thus deniability is irrelevant. There are no excuses being made.

        You can't change who they are, but you can heed the effective warning and prevent people like them from taking further advantage of the systems they exploit.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        They're racists who somehow think there's some plausible deniability in saying "It's a joke" or "We're just showing a vulnerability."

        I see no reason to buy into the ridiculous excuses these people make, when it's obvious what they really are and what they are really doing.

        "it's just a joke" used to be the favoured defence of anyone called out for racism, now it's "WOKEEE!!!!1!11!!ELEVEN!!!"

        You're dead right that it's obvious and anyone with half a brain can see what their doing. They'll keep changing their excuse as they slowly realise the old one isn't working any more.

      • They're racists who somehow think there's some plausible deniability in saying "It's a joke" or "We're just showing a vulnerability."

        well, it's interesting the first thing you write is a judgement of character.

        this is often the type of person 4chan likes to mess with: someone with a tendency to conflate character and action.

    • Re:Good. AI is being embraced with faith, not trus (Score:4, Funny)

      by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @01:14PM (#63902929) Journal

      Darn! We should take the internet away from humanity since we're not smart enough to use it for it's intended purposes of making the world a better place.

      • Re:Good. AI is being embraced with faith, not trus (Score:5, Informative)

        by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @01:57PM (#63903119) Journal

        We should take the internet away from humanity since we're not smart enough to use it for it's intended purposes of making the world a better place.

        The intended purpose was to facilitate better communication between universities and government agencies. The whole "make the world a better place" bit wasn't a thing until the .com bubble in the 90s and birth of the Silicon Valley Bro who needed a more marketable slogan than "Update the 19th Century monopolist union busting playbook with modern technology"

        Human behavior being shitty online was the most foreseeable outcome ever to those of us who used pre-Internet services like BBSes, Compuserve, IRC, AOL, the alt.* hierarchy on Usenet (and the rest of Usenet after Eternal September), etc., etc., etc.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by quax ( 19371 )

          I regretfully recall the day when AOL and Compuserve built gateways to the Internet. That's when it started to go bad.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Plugh ( 27537 )
          Usenet. Using uuencode/uudecode in alt.bin.* for the purpose of "Copyright violations featuring females". Yes the university networks were awesome in the 80s!

      • The current intended purpose of the internet is to sell stuff, like pretty much everything else corporations touch.

        Sure there are other things, like sharing opinions, knowledge, porn but these are minor bit roles in the real purpose. These are just hooks to get you to buy more stuff.

  • If you stop being triggered, 4chan will stop posting these images. Stop playing whack-a-mole. You cannot use racism as an excuse to censor.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      If you stop being triggered, 4chan will stop posting these images./quote?

      Really? Racists will just up and stop promoting their beliefs if we just ignore them?

      Somehow I doubt that.

      • "Really? Racists will just up and stop promoting their beliefs if we just ignore them?"

        Of course they won't stop. But, by definition, it won't matter to anyone. Get on with your life, even if someone is wrong on the Internet. [xkcd.com]

        • "Really? Racists will just up and stop promoting their beliefs if we just ignore them?"

          Of course they won't stop. But, by definition, it won't matter to anyone. Get on with your life, even if someone is wrong on the Internet.

          It's not against the law to be racist...or speak or promote racist ideations.

          In the US, at least...this is considered free speech.

          The bad comes with the good in a system like this...it's best to just ignore it.

          Kinda like that episode of the Simpsons (decades ago)...when the adv

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by skam240 ( 789197 )

            Kinda like that episode of the Simpsons (decades ago)...when the advertising icons came to life and the only way "kill" them was to just ignore them. (Treehouse of Horrors episode I think?).

            Sure, except in reality ignoring racists doesnt make them die or even disappear or go away. Instead, a lack of negative feed back leads to normalization (at least in their own eyes) and the normalization of racism leads to people acting on it to the detriment of others.

            In another post I cited the Trump presidency which regardless of how you feel about him had an image problem in regards to race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] that was seized on by White supremacists as a "virtue". What did we get from thi

          • "Really? Racists will just up and stop promoting their beliefs if we just ignore them?"

            Of course they won't stop. But, by definition, it won't matter to anyone. Get on with your life, even if someone is wrong on the Internet.

            It's not against the law to be racist...or speak or promote racist ideations.

            In the US, at least...this is considered free speech.

            In the US this is considered the very foundation of society; that there are races and that you can look at someone and figure out from their appearance what race they are and, thereby, where they fit in society and how you should interact with them.
            Without that very concept, society in the USA would collapse.
            Therefore, the USA is, fundamentally, a racist society.
            It isn't just 'free speech', its a requirement for the USA to even exist.

            • In the US this is considered the very foundation of society; that there are races and that you can look at someone and figure out from their appearance what race they are and, thereby, where they fit in society and how you should interact with them.

              Without that very concept, society in the USA would collapse.

              Therefore, the USA is, fundamentally, a racist society.

              It isn't just 'free speech', its a requirement for the USA to even exist.

              Really? You believe this...?

              Wow...just......wow.

              • In the US this is considered the very foundation of society; that there are races and that you can look at someone and figure out from their appearance what race they are and, thereby, where they fit in society and how you should interact with them.

                Without that very concept, society in the USA would collapse.

                Therefore, the USA is, fundamentally, a racist society.

                It isn't just 'free speech', its a requirement for the USA to even exist.

                Really? You believe this...?

                Wow...just......wow.

                The USA practically invented racism and the whole mess of eugenics and racial controls, segregation etc, which the Nazis later adopted. The USA was the MODEL for fascist Europe.
                Your country is built on the premise that races exist and that they are unequal, thats how you got to where you are today, economically and socially.
                Don't you even know your history?

        • Re:Freedom of speech (Score:4, Insightful)

          by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @02:08PM (#63903171)

          No, but there is a sizable population demographic, agnostic to race, religion, or creed, which will do the opposite of something they are told simply because you told them to do it. I'd put the number at roughly 5% of the total population.

          So when you censor things, or make them risque and edgy, you automatically make them more appealing to a certain demographic.

          That demographic, interestingly, has a high degree of overlap with those who have ADHD - the same demographic which is targeted by 'the other' side of the current culture war we're in (trans/woke) - as well as the US military for recruitment. Very interesting IMO.

          If you want people to stop trolling things which are socially unacceptable, stop being triggered by it and simply mock it or ignore it. Nazis weren't a thing in the US again until they started getting propped up by the media as a strawman. People are creating their own demons by being reactionary pusstards.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          Of course they won't stop. But, by definition, it won't matter to anyone.

          No, you dont get it. If racists are able to be loud and proud about their racism that means more abuse for those they want to target. It emboldens them just to not be shut down. The more their material is out there the more emboldened they feel and the more "normal" they begin to feel their racism is the more likely they are to act on it to the detriment of others.

          Trump's presidency is a prime example. Love him or hate him he most certainly had an image problem when it came to race https://en.wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org]

    • .. at least it's not your life! .. just stop being triggered by uncivilized behaviour it makes you look so uncool.

    • what you're describing is called "normalization". It's a common tactic of extremists.

      Being outraged by things that are worthy of outrage is and remains a good thing (tm). There's a reason 4chan exists, and it's to cordon off the worst of the Internet in one easily accessible place for the 4chan Party Van to pick up.

      • Outrage by things that deserve outrage is fine, but people get outraged the smallest of things, some people published some racist images, big deal.

        The genocides around the world, people living in slavery, you know these are the things that outrage me, some morons publishing some dumb images do not.

        A few years ago I watched a news show where they described where a woman got an accidental text that said that said she was a 4, but he would sleep with her since he hadn't had sex for a while, the news readers sa

        • You're committing the motte and bailey fallacy.

          I point out that posting racist material should cause outrage because it normalizes racism.

          You bring up an unrelated anecdote that you're assuming (perhaps rightly) people reading your post will agree with you on.

          Finally you end your post saying "we have removed a lot of major problems in our life" implying, via the motte & bailey trick you just pulled, that racism isn't a problem anymore.

          Honestly there are times I see what I think is a mott

  • Foreseeable (Score:4, Interesting)

    by a5y ( 938871 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @01:06PM (#63902897)

    The entire value proposition of the LLM image generators pitched to idiot media pundits as AI is convenience driven: it doesn't do ANYTHING well, but it is VERY convenient. It can't make a drawing with a pair of human looking hands in it worth a damn, but it can make 1000 of them quick.

    It makes things that were before too inconvenient to do much more attainable. Before it was rarely viable for a large amount of trouble makers to create any large body of work to create harassment or an agitprop effect but, as intended, LLM image generators made that much less inconvenient to attempt.

    But the same rubes who repeat the press statements calling this "AI" won't ask the question "Why not hold the technologists who intend to profit from this software accountable for the novel harms it creates?" They can't considering the sites they work for live and die by how much engagement they get on Facebook, and asking those questions to LLM charlatans without asking them of Meta and their role in genocide in Myanmar.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Plugh ( 27537 )
      Latest round of image generators are really good with human hands, actually. The whole crazy point is that just throwing more CPU & bigger training set at bigger networks with the occasional clever hack (like CNNs and then Transformers) has resulted in step changes upwards in capabilities that were not at all obvious before the fact.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by a5y ( 938871 )

        Latest round of image generators are really good with human hands, actually.

        This sounds like splitting hairs, but it is not: what you is actually happening is people with no personal risk weighing in declaring something is "really good", and creating a perception that "everyone knows that ...", which is not the same as if something is really good.

        If 1000 people declare something is really good and 1 isn't; many will say "YEAH, OBVIOUSLY IT'S REALLY GOOD" with confidence and dismiss the lone 1 as a contrarian or edgelord.

        Now what do you think happens when 1000 think something is rea

  • Refusing to allow a nipple but supercharging racists sound like exactly the kind of future that nutjob white Christian Nationalists think of as the perfect utopian ideal.
    This may be quite intentional.

    • Recall when email first hit the scene and how useful it was until spam shit on it? It's a case of humans taking advantage of technology in a way not intended by the designers.

      It's been the same with social media designed to improve global communications.

      Technology is a great tool for shouting, "FIRE!" in a crowd.

    • Got to hide those nipples. What if a wee baby saw one?

      • It's funny the amount of videos and shows I've seen that contain extreme and graphic violence, and all kinds of blood and guts, but words like "shit" and sometimes "hell" and "damb" gets bleeped out. "Yoy can slice off as many heads as you want, Conan, but don't have a potty mouth."
  • Only one institution in the entire world has a profit motive to do this, Google. The idea that thousands of script kiddies are spending their free time trying to preserve Googles dominance in the market doesn't make any sense and isn't plausible.

    The real product for Web 2.0 was the ability to generate large numbers of fake accounts that you could use to attack your enemies while slo generating a fake cover story for why the swarm is behaving that way. This action has no feasible alternative explanation ot
  • As the word "racism" is often (ab)used as code for something else, the article isn't clear about the definition and does not show example images, all I have to go by is the author's word. As I do not know the author, the article has little meaning in its current form. Everyone is (called) a racist these days. What else is new?

    • Re:Exception: Racism undefined. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by spazmonkey ( 920425 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @01:33PM (#63902997)

      It's 4Chan. What else do you really need, a cross burning in your yard?

      • Re:Exception: Racism undefined. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @02:09PM (#63903183) Journal
        If I troll people posing as a Christian does that make me a Christian?

        • No. The images are racist regardless of what might be in the posters' hearts.

        • Of course not. Going to church after your trolling session and posting as a Christian among like minded Christians where no one is being trolled or judged externally is what makes you a Christian.

          4chan.org/b/ is that Church. Their racist bullshit extends well beyond public trolling into their private lives. If you are "posing" that much, it's probably because you really really identify with what you're posing as.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          If I troll people posing as a Christian does that make me a Christian?

          More than likely, Christian sects are often attacked by other sects of Christianity.

          At least that's what the Catholics keep saying about the Prodi dogs (and vice versa, I'm a non-practicing Satanist, so I'm just sitting back with some popcorn).

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      Everyone is (called) a racist these days.

      Sounds more like a you problem as I havent observed this in life at all.

      • Everyone is (called) a racist these days.

        Sounds more like a you problem as I havent observed this in life at all.

        But it isn't unlike what I see from the authoritarian left, where everyone else is a Nazi. Even the liberal left are nazis.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          Once again, you problem. I do not observe what you describe in American society to any wide degree.

          Is there the occasional Leftist idiot who calls someone a Nazi when it's uncalled for? Of course there is, there are idiots in every major ideology. I have never observed any type of broad based problem with this however.

          • Once again, you problem. I do not observe what you describe in American society to any wide degree.

            Is there the occasional Leftist idiot who calls someone a Nazi when it's uncalled for? Of course there is, there are idiots in every major ideology. I have never observed any type of broad based problem with this however.

            Leftism isn't really that widespread in the USA though. I know you like to think of the Democrats as politically 'left' but thats only because they are slightly less far right than the Republicans. I guess you'd have to be pretty fringe to encounter people who are actually leftist.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by skam240 ( 789197 )

              The political positions of Left and Right are as relative as the directions of the same name. Is our left as far to the left as other first world nations? Absolutely not. They're still our country's left wing though.

  • The more things change...The more stays same. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mindragon ( 627249 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @01:38PM (#63903025) Journal

    Printing Press: Jonathan Swift complained about political fake news in 1710 in his essay “The Art of Political Lying"
    Radio: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938.
    Printing Press (v2 - IMAGES!!): “Dewey Defeats Truman.” 1948
    TV: Infomercials. Need I say more? Amirite?
    Early Internet: DMHO. 2004
    TV v2: Plane crashes. Bing Dang Ow. 2013
    Internet (with AI!!!): This

    Remind me again where the fire is?

  • Breaking News:

    Technology can be used both for things you approve of and thing you despise.
    Who'd have thought?
    More details after these ads which tell you totally made up bullshit in order to influence you into buying their crap but we don't call them out on it because they pay our bills...

  • Totally forgot about 4Chan. Thanks for reminding me why.

  • It's a well-developed fascist strategy of destabilization.

    Here's a choice excerpt from "Elon Musk's Machine for Fascism: A Tale of Three Elections" recently published on emptywheel.net:

    From trial testimony, regarding hashtag hijacking....

    "Itâ(TM)s like if you have a hashtag â" back then like a Hillary Clinton hashtag called âoeIâ(TM)m with her,â then what that would be is I would say, okay, letâ(TM)s take âoeIâ(TM)m with herâ hashtag, because thatâ(TM)s what

  • I suspect at least 99.9% of 4channers aren't card carrying Klansmen but instead they are awkward kids and man-childs who couldn't make it in life and feel the need to be "edgy" and "badass".

  • ... refuse to generate a nipple but is supercharging 4chan racists.

    That's not a bug, that's a feature.

    https://thedevilspanties.com/a... [thedevilspanties.com]

  • It's possible that eventually the internet will be thought of as a source of spam, nothing but spam. People will eventually stop reading anything on their phones and websites, and will only depend on printed, edited, reviewed books and magazines. Think of a scene from blade runner street where to show that a person has "lost it", they show that person "reading" stuff off a device.
  • I understand that 4-chan trolls do what 4-chan trolls do, but I haven't seen their work proliferate...at all, so I searched popular images of various political figured and found...nothing of that sort in Bing, even with safe search disabled. Bogey man?
  • There are no numbers, no study, no measurements in the article to support the headline's claim that the Internet is "flooded" with racist images. Anectdotally, the article says images were posted to a TikTok account, which was removed. A better summary would say racist images are being removed from the Internet. Which is not news because that is the status quo.

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