The government said some of these - including specific laws against "downblousing", installing hidden cameras, and threatening to share someone's intimate images - would be dealt with in future legislation, but it did not offer any timescale.

Analysis For campaigners hoping that 2022 could be the year that deepfaked imagery falls within a stricter legal purview, the early indicators are unpromising. Last Thursday the European Parliament ratified amendments to the Digital Services Act (DSA, due to take effect in 2023), in regards to the dissemination of deepfakes. The modifications address deepfakes across two sections, each directly related to online advertising: amendment 1709 pertaining to Article 30, and a related amendment to article 63. 'Where a very large online platform becomes aware that a piece of content is a generated or manipulated image, audio or video content that appreciably resembles existing persons, objects, places or other entities or events and falsely appears to a person to be authentic or truthful (deep fakes), the provider shall label the content in a way that informs that the content is inauthentic and that is clearly visible for the recipient of the services.' The second adds text to the existing article 63, which is itself mainly concerned with increasing the transparency of large advertising platforms. 'In addition, very large online platforms should label any known deep fake videos, audio or other files.'

Deepfake videos can be fun, but not when it comes to politcs and pornography. Now, the state of California is doing something about it with two new bills signed into law last week by Governor Gavin Newsom. The first makes it illegal to post any manipulated videos that could, for instance, replace a candidate's face or speech in order to discredit them, within 60 days of an election. The other will allow residents of the state to sue anyone who puts their image into a pornographic video using deepfake technology. Deepfake videos have become more convincing as of late, especially recent ones from Ctrl Shift Face that show comedian/actor Bill Hader's face replaced by Tom Cruise.

In November 2017, a Reddit account called deepfakes posted pornographic clips made with software that pasted the faces of Hollywood actresses over those of the real performers. Nearly two years later, deepfake is a generic noun for video manipulated or fabricated with artificial intelligence software. The technique has drawn laughs on YouTube, along with concern from lawmakers fearful of political disinformation. Yet a new report that tracked the deepfakes circulating online finds they mostly remain true to their salacious roots. Startup Deeptrace took a kind of deepfake census during June and July to inform its work on detection tools it hopes to sell to news organizations and online platforms.

In the explosive first episode of Shane Dawson's new'Conspiracy Series', Shane takes a look at the bizarre world of'deepfakes' - but what are they? The term "deepfake" is a combination of "deep learning" and "fake". "Deep learning" is a technical term which refers to the way computer programs learn. The technology - which is rapidly advancing, uses the power of AI to digitally paint one person's face over another. The results can be so realistic that it can be difficult to differentiate between what is real and what is artificial.