Facebook announced it will remove deepfakes on its platform, a move experts call a"baby step" in the right direction as the social media giant grapples with the spread of disinformation ahead of the 2020 presidential election.The term "deepfake" refers to video or audio that has been altered, usually with artificial intelligence or deep-learning technology to depict a person doing something they never did or saying something they never said.
Videos that are parody or satire or edited to omit or change the order of words are exempt from the policy changes.In May, a video that appeared to be digitally altered to impair the speech of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went viral, ringing the alarm bells for the possible rise of this new digital threat as the 2020 elections approached.
"As we head into the 2020 elections, this is a good step forward," Dipayan Ghosh, a former privacy and public policy advisor at Facebook and former technology and economic policy advisor in the Obama White House, told ABC News Tuesday. Still, we should"acknowledge that this is a baby step," Ghosh added."And one that maybe doesn't require Facebook to give up a lot of business."
"The real problem lies in more traditional disinformation advertising," Ghosh said."And Facebook has not made the primary commitment that perhaps it should around limiting micro-targeting and limiting political advertising more broadly to address the threat of coordinated disinformation across its network."
— Drew Hammill January 7, 2020 Amnesty International also took to Twitter, offering its criticism."We should be more worried about the power of Facebook’s algorithms to shape & manipulate online experience of billions of people," the organization tweeted.
Surprising how some seemingly viable sources are so willing to be the vessel of spreading and fueling disinformation...at least FB is making an effort