[anonymouskimmer]

Just realized you're commenting about the teacher. From the WP article:

: “The parents at the school didn’t understand how that could be possible,” Zaleski said. “They insisted they didn’t want their kids taught by her anymore.”

There's not much you can do if your clients insist on no longer working with you.

It's also only a matter of time, if it hasn't been done yet, that a teacher and student will be targeted with deepfake porn that looks real. Even if it is eventually discovered to be fake, you're still dealing with a massively disruptive experience with mandatory leave during the investigation.

[ryandrake]

> “The parents at the school didn’t understand how that could be possible,” Zaleski said.

I guess -a- root cause here is the general public’s ignorance of the capability of computer software. Not sure how to fix that besides giving it time. As soon as it’s widely accepted that computers can generate believable fake video, you’d expect deepfakes to be disregarded, but then again we’ve been saying “don’t believe what you see on the Internet” for how long and people still believe what they read on the Internet.

[bsder]

> There's not much you can do if your clients insist on no longer working with you.

Then that's where the law needs to step in to protect people from the ignorant.

[anonymouskimmer]

So you're saying that the law should force people to stay in a business relationship? Like let's say this wasn't a teacher employed by a school district, but an independent tutor directly employed by parents. The law should force those parents to continue hiring the tutor? What if the parents have an independent plausible (or real) reason to cease doing business with the tutor?

[bsder]

> So you're saying that the law should force people to stay in a business relationship?

If the school receives public funding? Absolutely.

How many of the parents whining about the teacher actually had students in her class? Normally, in cases like this, you'll have something like one parent with a student in the class and a bunch of the Fox News pearl-clutcher brigade who don't even have children in the school.

> Like let's say this wasn't a teacher employed by a school district, but an independent tutor directly employed by parents.

That's a tougher problem. I still don't like it, but there's probably not a lot that can be done in that case. However, the mob mentality is also a bit dampened since the interactions are both individual and unforced.

[anonymouskimmer]

I agree with you on how #1 should have been handled.

Independent contractors depend hugely on word of mouth and referrals.

[dragonwriter]

> So you're saying that the law should force people to stay in a business relationship?

If by “force” you mean “impose a legal duty that, when violated, incurs a liability from the violator to those harmed by the violation”, sure, and nondiscrimination law already does that, and has for a long time: the discussion here is about the scope of that mandate.

[anonymouskimmer]

Regardless of the scope there will always be cases that aren't covered by it without draconian legal compulsions.

It's much easier and more legitimate to force the original defamer to make the defamed party as whole as possible. And otherwise try to prevent such defamation. Or at least it was before anonymous internet publication.