Facebook working on policy to police deepfake videos, Zuckerberg says

Social media giant, Facebook is working on a policy to police deepfakes, an emerging threat on the social network that involves users posting videos altered by artificial intelligence to spread misinformation.

But CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it’s a complicated matter because the company wants to avoid deleting videos in which the person featured merely feels they were misrepresented, like in a network news clip.

“We need to be very careful,” Zuckerberg said at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Wednesday in Aspen, Colo. “Across our services there more than 100 billion pieces of content a day flowing through the systems, and we want to make sure we can define things in a way that’s precise.”

Read also: Sperm banks in space could soon become a reality, reports say

Over the past couple of years, deepfakes have become a big focus for their potential to cause serious damage by putting words in people’s mouths. Although they look a bit amateurish today, they’re expected to improve in quality and become indistinguishable from real clips.

The fear is that such videos could spark a war, sway an election, or be used for extortion.

Facebook is currently discussing the matter with artificial intelligence experts as it maps out how it will police deepfakes. The company will likely create a new policy that separates deepfakes from misinformation.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now