Earlier this year, a distorted footage concerning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi circulated like fire on all social platforms, wherein she seemed to be impaired.
Within a short period, the video racked up even more than 2.5 million views only on Facebook.
Hence, proving the impact pertaining to what is identified exactly as ‘Deepfakes’.
The artist who did that extracted parts out of Pelosi’s press meeting footage, wherein she seems to be mentioning that President Trump’s staff or family members should stage an intervention.
“PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE,” President Trump tweeted, paraphrasing the headline that Fox Business displayed.
It was clear that the altered video was purposely made and aired so as to intensify and emphasize on virtually any verbal missteps.
As a result, Facebook agreed to limit the circulation of Pelosi’s fake video footage.
Nevertheless, the company mentioned that it would not take it down permanently stating the fact that the company does not have a policy stipulating- ‘the content which user puts up has to be 100% precise’.
Although, it was relief from YouTube as the company took down Pelosi video clips from the platform as soon as they realized it wasn’t true.
Instagram’s chief Adam Mosseri affirmed that the company is undoubtedly considering ways to handle these so-called “Deepfakes” which have been deliberately altered so as to make a fact seem and sound true.
Another ‘deepfake’ that gained a lot of views and attention from social media users was an altered clip of Facebook’s owner “Mark Zuckerberg”.
Yeah!
You read that right!
The man behind Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
Inside the manipulated footage, Zuckerberg was seemed to be declaring – “Imagine this for a second … One man with total control of billions of people’s stolen data. All their secrets, their lives, their futures.”
The real footage was first aired from CBS in 2017.
It is for this fact, CBS asked the company to eliminate such fake videos from its platform for copyright infringement.
Unfortunately, Facebook turned down CBS’s request for removing the video clip irrespective of CBS asserting trademark violation and copyright infringement.
“Well, we don’t have a policy against deepfakes currently,” said Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri.
Adam said that the Instagram company is attempting to gauge if we need to make it happen and bring in any policy changes or updates.
And in case if the company deems so, it would then need to determine ways to specify such deepfakes.
“I don’t feel good about it,” Mosseri said, extending his concern over the issue.
In reaction to which, CBS’s King asked why is the company not taking down such things in case he (Adam) feels so bad.
To which he responds- “Well, I actually think more than taking it down … there is a question about how we do that in a principled way. We are not going to make a one-off decision to take a piece of video down just because it’s of Mark and Mark happens to run this place. That would be really inappropriate and irresponsible. We need to have defined principles and we need to be transparent about those principles.”
Nevertheless, it is having an influence on individuals with things that not even necessarily true, and for this reason it’s distressing, King Gayle stated.
“I agree with you, but if it takes too long to identify it at that point the damage is done,” Mosseri said.
“We could declare victory but that’s not a victory at all, that’s totally hollow. So the thing we are focused on right now, internally, is not if we take it down when we find it, but how do you find it more quickly because if we don’t, if a million people see a video like that in the first 24 hours or the first 48 hours, the damage is done. So that conversation, though very important, currently, is moot.”
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“Right now we try to balance safety … and speech. And that balance can be tricky,” he said.
“But, honestly right now I think the most important thing for us to focus on is getting to the content quicker. Once we can do that, then we can have the next debate about whether or not to take it down when we find it.”
King extended her concern over the issue quoting, ‘it’s tough to look at that video knowing its wrong.”
To which Adam responded-
“I struggle with it too. I am a person too. It’s not like I don’t have my own beliefs or I don’t see things that violate or that disagrees with me online or on Facebook or Instagram from time to time.”
Conclusion
It is undoubtedly true that the company has been working doggedly to bring about new functionality and security updates.
And the process seems to be speeding exponentially especially after Mosseri took the helm at Gram in October 2018.
Having refined his pressure management skills by overseeing Facebook’s News Feed, the 36-year-old Mosseri represents a new age of Instagram.
Read More- Adam Mosseri on Foreign Intervention in 2020 US Elections!
The Instagram team is consistently carrying out comprehensive research on the platform to bring on new features and updates with the motto of ‘transparency in data’ while execution.
Although there are many announcements made recently, users are quite hopeful and looking forward to hearing from the company regarding deepfakes too.
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Till then???
See you next time!
Bye-bye.