Tech giants need to tackle deepfakes

Deepfake technology has been making headlines. Deepfakes use deep learning artificial intelligence to replace the likeness of one person with another in video and other digital media. There are concerns that deepfake technology can be used to create fake news and misleading, counterfeit videos.

Deepfake technology enables anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to create realistic-looking photos and videos of people saying and doing things that they did not actually say or do. A combination of the phrases deep learning and fake, deepfakes first emerged on the Internet in late 2017, powered by an innovative new deep learning method known as generative adversarial networks or GANs.

Deepfakes are hyper-realistic forgeries created by computer techniques that have triggered alarm worldwide in particular when they are used in a political context.

The amount of deep fake content online is growing at a rapid rate. Today's deepfake technology is still not quite to parity with authentic video footage—by looking closely, it is typically possible to tell that a video is a deepfake. As the technology is evolving at a breath-taking pace, experts predict that deepfakes will be indistinguishable from real images before long.

Today we stand at an inflection point. In the months and years ahead, deepfakes threaten to grow from an Internet oddity to a widely destructive political and social force. Society needs to act now to prepare itself.

As reported by Reuters, Alphabet unit Google, Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies will have to take measures to counter deepfakes and fake accounts on their platforms or risk hefty fines under an updated EU code of practice.

The European Commission will publish the updated code of practice on disinformation, as part of its crackdown against fake news. The updated code will spell out more examples of manipulative behaviour such as deepfakes and fake accounts which the signatories will have to tackle, as per the report.

Going forward, companies which fail to live up to their obligations under the code can face fines of as much as 6% of their global turnover, the people said. EU industry chief Thierry Breton said, Disinformation cannot remain a source of revenue.

From Brexit to the Russian war on Ukraine, over the past years, well-known social networks have allowed disinformation and de-stabilisation strategies to spread without restraint even making money out of it.

S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA