Kintsugi, Content Authentication, and Rebuilding Trust in the Internet

Trust in content is not only a critical issue, it is existential. As we argue in this new Tauth Labs issue brief, “Kintsugi, Content Authentication, and Rebuilding Trust in the Internet,” content authentication is a foundational technology.  

We note that although deepfake videos and AI-manipulated images are the major focus of the media today, they are just the tip of the iceberg. Warnings from global financial institutions about fraudulent content are being sent to clients through texts, email, and websites. Combine this with the rising tide of articles designed to look like they are from reputable sources, fake invoices, press releases and corporate announcements underscore new risks to reputations and bottom lines.

While industry leaders recognize these new challenges, those taking steps to address them are following a classic technology adoption curve. We are at the early adopter stage.  

There’s a lot that can be done to frame discussions of the technology that will make it resonate more broadly. Over the last year we have focused on the concept of “Shadow Content” as well as thinking about brand safety and content authentication in terms of “protect, detect and correct.”  In this paper, we add a new way to think about content authentication in the digital landscape – Kintsugi.                                                      

Kintsugi and Content Authentication

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, damage and its repair become part of the history and beauty of an object, rather than something to hide.

Practiced for 500 years, kintsugi is shaped by the ideas of Zen, and wabi-sabi in which the flawed or imperfect are embraced.

We believe the Internet is broken at least in terms of fraud. Trust in digital content, long declining, is now in freefall.  

Focusing on a Solvable Problem

The starting point for a fix is the belief that the problems we are seeing today are in fact addressable. We believe that the focus on AI slop and synthetic content is counterproductive. With technology experts citing data that show this year that more than 90 percent of internet content will be AI generated, efforts to tackle this challenge may feel like we are trying to boil the ocean. When problems are too big, it’s all too easy to not try or give up at the first hurdle.

Focusing on Shadow Content, which includes fake press releases, media articles, images or deepfake videos, is a starting point for thinking about the challenges facing companies, publishers and governments, both in terms of what matters and can be addressed using content authentication and other layers of digital safety.

As we note in the paper, “Whereas slop or synthetic content may not necessarily be malicious, shadow content is the bad stuff that needs to be rooted out.”

Content Authentication

Content authentication, a technology spearheaded by a coalition led by Adobe of the world’s leading technology and media companies, including Tauth Labs, is a key to fixing the Internet and making it safer.

The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, known as C2PA, is the body that has developed standards for incorporating credentials into all forms of digital content, so that recipients can determine its provenance, ultimately providing the ability to know who produced it or where it is from.          

The technology combines user verification, digital watermarks, credentials, and the option of logging content on blockchain, to build in a layer of digital safety into individual documents, images, video and audio files.

As we highlight in the paper, content authentication protects companies and their clients – by helping them differentiate between authentic and fake content. It can also be used to detect fake or manipulated versions of authenticated content, in addition to having applications in the range of "correct" solutions.     

As with every new technology, content authentication has its critics – who highlight potential risks and concerns around specific scenarios.         

Focusing on the Good, Doesn’t Mean Ignoring Imperfections

We believe that kintsugi is useful framing tool for these discussions. If we start with the recognition that content authentication is not a silver bullet or perfect, we can focus on what is important: Does authentication make the internet safer for companies and users? We believe the answer is clearly yes. Are there use cases where privacy or other issues must be solved? The answer is also yes.

Authentication is based on proven technology. The digital trust signal it builds into content can be recognized both by humans and machines. This is hugely significant.

The nearest analog is the shift from http to https - but for content not websites. Think about the last time you found a website that was not certified. It’s not that it does not happen, but the foundational technology infrastructure elevates and deprioritizes what is not. This is one part of the value proposition of C2PA authentication for individual pieces of content – it adds value by making it more searchable and visible.                              

Kintsugi, along with the ideas of shadow content and the protect, detect and correct, provide a way to think about content authentication in a way that we believe makes it more likely it will be implemented.

Thinking of content authentication as the lacquer or urushi to hold the pieces of the internet together and that does not hide the imperfections is we believe a useful way to highlight its value. And, when viewed through the lens of wabi-sabi, we can choose to admire and in fact celebrate the benefits content authentication brings to the table.             

Download the paper here.  

Contact us at slocke@tauth.io or visit www.tauth.io