Arming yourself against deepfake technology

YouTube recently reiterated its commitment to banning deepfake videos in the US 2020 election. While this ban on technically manipulated videos of political figures isn't new and has been in place since the last presidential election in 2016, it illustrates just how increasingly difficult it is for the public (and organisations) to verify a person's true identity online. A deepfake today uses AI to combine existing imagery to replicate both their face and voice. Essentially, they can impersonate a real person, making them appear to say words they have never even spoken – hence the fear when it comes to general elections and politics being skewed by misinformed videos. Worryingly, the number of them online has doubled in less than a year, from 7,964 in December 2018 to more than 14,000 just nine months later.