Sora Isn't the Problem: It's the Mirror

I got access to Sora in TikTok form, and something clicked. The feed was annoying because it was honest about what social media already rewards.

Friction Is Gone

Lying used to have a cost. Fabricating video evidence meant work. Film it. Edit it. Make it convincing. That work was friction. Friction penalized lying with time, effort, and risk of exposure.

Sora removes that penalty entirely.

Now a fake historical event, celebrity deepfake, or invented piece of testimony starts with a prompt. Fabricating video can be easier than capturing reality.

Why This Breaks the System

Social media optimizes for engagement, not truth. Until generative video, fabrication still had enough production cost to limit its volume.

Sora removes much of that limit. A fabricated clip and a recorded moment now compete in the same feed, while the ranking system still chooses whatever keeps people scrolling.

What This Looks Like

TikTok already concentrates algorithmic curation into bubbles. Generative video gives those bubbles an endless supply of the same IP, memes, and likenesses. The Verge reported getting trapped in scroll loops of deepfaked celebrities and fabricated moments even while knowing they were AI.

Watching the Sora feed fill itself with fabricated celebrity cameos made the incentive harder for me to dismiss. Sora did not invent engagement ranking. It removed much of the work that had limited how much fabricated video could compete inside it.