Pierluigi Paganini January 08, 2020

Monika Bickert, Facebook for global policy management, announced that Facebook will ban deepfake videos and manipulated content.

Facebook has announced it will ban deepfake videos, which are media that take a person in an existing image or video and replace them with someone else’s likeness using artificial neural networks.

Monika Bickert, Facebook vice-president for global policy management, explained that even if these videos are still rare on the Internet, their use is increasing increases, posing a significant threat to the netizens.

“Manipulations can be made through simple technology like Photoshop or through sophisticated tools that use artificial intelligence or “deep learning” techniques to create videos that distort reality – usually called “deepfakes.” While these videos are still rare on the internet, they present a significant challenge for our industry and society as their use increases.” she wrote in a blog post.

Bickert added that Facebook will remove videos that are produced by AI or machine learning systems that merge, replace or superimpose content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic.

“This policy does not extend to content that is parody or satire, or video that has been edited solely to omit or change the order of words,” Bickert added. “This approach is critical to our strategy and one we heard specifically from our conversations with experts.” “If we simply removed all manipulated videos flagged by fact-checkers as false, the videos would still be available elsewhere on the internet or social media ecosystem. By leaving them up and labelling them as false, we’re providing people with important information and context.”

Facebook pointed out that videos that don’t meet these standards for removal are still eligible for review by one of it independent third-party fact-checkers. Any photo or video rated as false or partly false by a fact-checker will be not distributed in News Feed and will be not usable as part of an ad.

Unfortunately, deepfake videos are increasingly more difficult to be detected, and it is necessary to employ AI-based systems to discriminate them.

In 2019, Facebook launched the Deep Fake Detection Challenge, an initiative aimed at inviting researchers to build innovative new technologies for the detection of deepfake videos and manipulated media.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Deepfake videos, Facebook)

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