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Deepfakes, an algorithm that transposes the face of one person onto the face of another person in images and film, is a digital technology that may fundamentally alter our belief in visual modality and thus presents alarming consequences for an image-centric culture. Not only are these face-translations now so advanced that it is virtually impossible for people to tell that they are fake – this technology is also becoming accessible to laypersons who, with little or no computer skills, can use them for all kinds of purposes, including criminal intentions like revenge porn and identity theft. It is therefore timely and crucial to explore the semiotic potential of deepfakes. This paper presents a semiotic technology perspective, i.e., the study of technology for meaning- making that is an emergent field in social semiotics, to report on findings from an ongoing study of how deepfake software is designed and used as a semiotic resource in erotic and political contexts. The paper advances the argument that the software is able to appropriate all signifiers of the face and their cultural history. Consequently, the semiotic operations of this technology prepare the ground for the problematic perspectives of synthetic facial imagery. On this basis, the paper calls for a critical awareness of taking visual representations of current events at face value and considers how deepfake technology is embedded in unsound sharing practices of visual artefacts that tamper with the rich meaning potential of the face.

Since October 2010, the Instagram app has provided its users with means of visual communication that previously were reserved for professional photographers. Simultaneously, the Instagram Corporation’s official blog has offered suggestions on how the features of the app could be applied. In this manner, the corporation has established a norm of Instagram use. Norms of technology use, i.e., socially learned ways of behaving and communicating with technology, are well-researched in technology and science studies, but thus far these studies have only included social media, e.g., Instagram, to a minor degree. Furthermore, it remains largely unexplored how these social rules are represented multimodally in discourses about social media technology. Through a critical multimodal discourse analysis, this paper describes how the aforementioned corporate regulative norms on the usage of Instagram were established on the corporate blog from 2010 to 2014. The findings show that the discourse on the blog adjusts its focus. Initially, it dealt with correctional tools for the app, but it then progressed into presenting tools for experimental visual expression. At the same time, the blog confines the experimental uses of the application and, thereby, the possible perception of what entertaining imagery is. This way, the study demonstrates how the Instagram Corporation seeks to regulate the use of the app.