Facebook says it is cracking down on ‘deepfake’ videos. Here’s why they’re dangerous

Facebook has announced in a blog post a new policy banning “deepfake” videos manipulated by artificial intelligence as the platform tries to curb the spread of misinformation ahead of the 2020 election cycle.

But the ban only applies to videos manipulated with AI, so “shallowfakes,” which are videos doctored by traditional editing tools, are still permitted on site, The Guardian reported.

Facebook defined “deepfakes” as videos that have been edited “in ways that aren’t apparent to an average person and would likely mislead someone into thinking that a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say.”

The videos also have to be produced by AI or “machine learning” that distorts reality, according to Facebook.

The policy doesn’t cover parody or satire videos, according to the post. “Deepfakes” are still rare online, but news organizations including BuzzFeed and the New York Times have created their own videos in order to spread awareness of how easily they can deceive.

Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president for global policy management who wrote the blog post announcing the change, will testify later this week in a congressional hearing on “manipulation and deception in the digital age,” The Washington Post reported.

The policy doesn’t apply to edited videos like the infamous “drunk” video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that went viral last year on Facebook. Her speech was slowed in order to give the false impression that Pelosi was drunk — but because it was edited with simple editing tools, it would likely still be allowed on the platform, according to The Washington Post.

Facebook has attempted to stop the spread of “fake news” in the past after complaints from many that it allowed fake news to proliferate on the website during the 2016 election. In November 2019, the platform announced that content that has been determined “false or partly false by a third-party fact-checker” will be labeled as such, according to the press release.

California passed a bill making “deepfakes” illegal after the Pelosi video went viral in order to stop the spread of misinformation about political candidates, Courthouse News reported.

“It’s a powerful and dangerous new tool for those wanting to wage disinformation campaigns,” state Sen. Bob Hertzberg said, according to Courthouse News.