Scale matters. This will allow unprecedented scale of producing fabricated video. You're right about evidence, but it doesn't need to hold up in court to do a lot of damage.
No, it doesn't. You cannot scale your way into posting from the official New York Times account, or needing valid government ID to comment, or whatever else contextually suggests content legitimacy. Abusing scale is an ancient exploit, with myriad antidotes. Ditto for producing realistic fakes. Baddies combining the two isn't new, or cause for panic. We'll be fine.
Your entire argument that scale doesn't matter rests on the notion that legitimacy needs to be signalled at all to fool people. It doesn't. It just needs to appeal to people's biases, create social chaos through word of mouth. Also, all you need to get posted on the NY times "account" is to fool some journalists. Scale can help there too by creating so much misinformation it becomes hard to find real information.
Scale definitely matters when that's what you're doing. In fact I challenge you to find any physical or social phenomenon where scale doesn't matter.
If read aloud, no one could guess if your comment came from 2024 or 2017. There is zero barrier between you and using trusted sources, or endlessly consuming whatever fantasy bullshit supports your biases. That has not, and will not, change.
