The 1912 War On Fake Photos

In recent weeks there has been a flurry of laws, regulatory proposals, and lawsuits regarding “deepfakes,” along with the usual rising levels of concern in the media about how the world won’t be able to handle this. For some perspective, the Pessimist’s Archive just published a story highlighting how a nearly identical fear gripped the world in 1912 regarding “fake” photos. We’ve republished it here, with permission, though you really should subscribe to the Pessimist’s Archive as well.

Concern about deceptively edited photos feels like a very modern anxiety, yet a century ago similar worries were being litigated…

Portrait photography gave rise to an industry of photo ‘retouching’ – analog ‘beauty filters’ – to flatter subjects in a way portrait painters once did. This trend lead to questions about technology distorting our perceptions of beauty, reality and truth:

An 1897 issue of the New-York Tribune would declare the assumption “Photographs Do Not Lie” an “exploded notion”, saying:

“…at the present time photographs may be and are made to lie with great frequency and facility.”

Other commercial applications of photo retouching emerged: in 1911 tourists visiting Washington D.C. could acquire fake photographs of themselves posing with then President of the United States William Taft. This troubled government officials. Upon discovering the practice in 1911, a United States Attorney ordered it stopped:

One (literal) photo-shop offering the novel souvenirs appealed to the White House for its blessing to continue the trade, but was denied. (the practice was not against the law, but pressure from the White House appeared effective if only temporarily — in the capital)

Photographic Crimes

The following year a fugitive – wanted for people trafficking – was found in possession of a fake photo posing with President Taft, it was reported he’d used it to buy the trust of his victims:

That this seemingly benign practice had been weaponized prompted some to demand it be regulated against abuse. The Justice Department prepared a law, that was introduced by then Senator Henry Cabot Lodge — who’d similarly been troubled after reportedly finding a photograph of himself with someone he’d never met.

On July 29, 1912 the bill was introduced to the Senate: “to prohibit the making, showing or distributing of fraudulent photographs”:

The law would make it illegal “to make, sell, publish, or show” any “fraudulent or untrue photograph, or picture purporting to be a photograph” of anyone who had not first given permission. Violation would see punishment of up to 6-months in jail or up to a $1000 fine ($31,797 adjusted for inflation.)

The proposed rules made headlines across the US, bringing the topic of fake photographs to wider attention:

The Intelligencer Journal of Pennsylvania applauded Senator Lodge’s efforts to combat the “miserable business of creating fake photographs”, saying while the technology of photography was a “wonderful art”, it was “manifestly in need of control against abuse.”

The piece emphasized the need for “national and state laws” to address negatives “artfully combined to tell pictorial lies” something the author called “photographic crimes”, warning that anyone was now vulnerable to slander from fake photos “apparently faithful and exhibited as the testimony of the innocent sun.”

Not everyone was a fan of the proposed law however. Some representing the photography community worried about unintended consequences of the bill: a 1912 edition of the publication ‘American Photography’ called the bill ‘indefensible’, saying that the law would make photographers and publishers “continually liable to blackmailing suits” – we assume by those claiming to have never given permission.

It appears the bill was never voted on and died in the Senate. The following year – President Taft would lose an election to Woodrow Wilson – reports of a renewed trade in fake photos of President Wilson in the capital would soon appear.

What if…

Had the law passed it would have been very relevant in the 21st Century, with the rise of digital photography, photoshop and more recently AI enabled image editing.

It would have made a federal crime of removing an object from a photo for instagram – without permission of everyone in it. On the other hand, recent efforts to legislate against fake nude images would be unneeded – those would be illegal already.

Surprisingly, this latter issue was also present in prior centuries: unmentioned in defense of the proposed law, were real cases of ‘photographic slander’ against women: in 1905 a gang was using the threat of “the circulation of indecent trick photographs for the purposes of blackmail.” A 1891 report out of Chicago noted the arrest of a “gang of scamps” selling fake nude images of high society women. (1936 would see a blackmail plot against opera stars)

Fake nudes could have been banned over a century ago – but the law was too broad, focusing on more speculative, rather than specific proven harms. A similar critique is made of some AI regulation proposed today – making this, a good possible lesson for the best way to approach AI regulation.

Side Note: Hypocrisy

A year after the law was proposed – in 1913 – a photo would appear of President Taft atop a Carabao – the national animal of the Philippines. It was thought to have been part of an effort to buy goodwill with a nation seeking independence from the United States:

It turns out, it was the very kind of fake photo the Taft administration was railing against. In 2018 history researcher Bob Couttie discovered a 1908 photo of President Taft astride a horse, in an identical pose: comparing the images it seems undeniable Taft had been cut and pasted onto a different image: literally.