URI_Research _Magazine_Momentum_Spring_2020_Melissa-McCarthy

A last will and testament (1507). If the testament were to disappear last wishes were not respected because they did not “exist.” In case of property transmission, it could be very important.

Signed letter of King François I of France (1528). There were a lot of forgeries in the Middle Ages. If a king’s letter of remission could be forged, a person may not go to jail.

according to Rollo-Koster. That information, going back hundreds if not thousands of years, she notes, was archived with a specific purpose — to preserve the past — and their contents should be transparent and available. Often, gaining access means waiting. In the U.S., says Rollo-Koster, papers may not be available to the public for 60 to 70 years. “How long did it take us to have access to the Kennedy papers [National Archives, Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992], the Nixon papers [opened in 1994]?” she asks. “There has to be a constant pushing for the opening of archives and shortening the time that archives can be restricted. But, preserving and archiving documentation is a political act. It eventually guides how events will be studied and understood. Governments and people chose what to archive and what not. So, the reality is already distorted from the start. This is why you must constantly cross-reference information.” Broadly, she continues, studying the past involves interpretation, which means people can revise whatever they choose to fit an agenda. The tools at their disposition (archives) also have been preserved with biases to fit the needs of the preservers. “History is one of the purest examples of how people will try to alter what they want at will in order to change perceptions in the present,” Rollo-Koster elaborates, pointing to the Holocaust as the most blatant attempt to distort facts. “The people who protest that the Holocaust never existed can’t be more blunt about the misrepresentation of the truth,” she says. On Monday, March 2, 2020, the Vatican secret archives opened its registers concerning Pope Pius II

(1939-1958), the pope of WWII — less than the 70 years quarantine required from the death of a pope. This will allow a total reexamination of the pope’s actions during WWII, and his knowledge of the Holocaust. “In fact, all of the discussion about the role of women, slavery, immigration — we cannot discuss history without having people misrepresent the past in order to change how we behave in the present,” Rollo- Koster says. Today, thanks to the massive proliferation of technology and social media, a new ability exists to generate completely false narratives that are entirely convincing and that can sway the opinions of masses of people. Jaacks says the same artificial intelligence and computer generation used to create new dialogue with Carrie Fisher in the Star Wars movie, after her death, also can be used to put words in a politician’s mouth. Even quick tampering with video can launch an entirely false narrative. “Look at the Nancy Pelosi video that was widely circulated in 2019,” he says of footage posted of the speaker of the House. “You can’t even call it a deep fake. You slow it down and change the pitch and she sounds inebriated. That takes two minutes to do. “The capability to completely alter reality,” Jaacks continues, “is the most insidious threat to the media ecosystem yet. If you thought the 2016 election cycle videos were incredibly harmful, the incoming wave of false videos is going to be much worse. This absolutely has the definitive power to undo democratic institutions in ways that we never imagined possible.” USING TECHNOLOGY

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