A few days after the start of the Russian invasion, President Volodymyr Zelensky himself fell victim to it. One botched video showed him speaking to the Ukrainian people, telling his soldiers to surrender to the soldiers of Vladimir Putin. It was soon understood that it was a fake video, or rather a deepfake, i.e. a movie created using artificial intelligence (AI) but starting from real content (usually the AI applies a different face to that of an actor with a similar build to the « target”). With the advances in technology distinguishing authentic content from one that is not is becoming increasingly difficult. And that it is not a game but that the implications can be dangerous can be understood from the advertising campaign of FaceMega going on these days on Facebook And Instagram.
Emma Watson and Scarlett Johansson deepfake sextapes
FaceMega is an application that allows, at a cost of around eight euros a week, to create deepfake videos, using already existing image sequences, but modifying their faces, audio and words, in such a way as to create content or pass a completely different message.
To make the sponsorship more convincing, in a completely unscrupulous way, the faces of two famous actresses were used, Emma Watson And Scarlett Johanssonappearing in approx two hundred videos, created ad hoc, in provocative behaviors that refer to the sexual sphere, as in a real sextape. In one of these, which went viral on Twitter, the actress who became famous for her role as Hermione kneels in front of a man, with obvious references to the sphere of online porn. The impressive realism, the almost perfect forgery.
Viral hoaxes
In addition to being false and at risk of being removed, exactly as was the case for the first tampered video on the war, these sequences of images altered with theArtificial intelligencerepresent a serious risk not only for the subjects involved, but also for the public that comes into contact with them, especially when these hoaxes go viral and concern intimate contexts.
What is «deepfake»
This is the term that encompasses a highly technological hoax that is spread through images. Thanks to’Artificial intelligence sequences of images and sound can easily be tampered with through sophisticated methodologies, which are also becoming increasingly accessible to the general public. For famous people, be it an actress or a politician, it is not at all difficult to access existing videos that can be found easily on the web, but the operation is becoming equally simple for ordinary people too, since reel of Instagram or TikTok videos offer users the faces of so many content creatornormal people and not necessarily influencers or star of the 2.0 platforms. This alteration brought to you by Artificial Intelligence and apps like FaceMega follows the same principle as so many filters, like the one that went viral on TikTok. Bold Glamour, this is the name of the filter that makes you more beautiful, “like coming out of a beauty salon”, allows you to take photos and record videos that don’t depict us as we really are. If on the one hand many users, even among the very young, consider a filter of this type to be a game, the potential of an app like FaceMega can actually prove to be very dangerous.
The risks
The case of Tom Cruise landing on TikTok, then denied. That of Zelensky, immediately refuted. The provocative videos of Emma Watson And Scarlett Johansson they concern celebrities, but what could happen if the subjects involved were private citizens? Revenge porn And cyberbullying they are two serious phenomena that can become even more problematic if encouraged by careless use of an application like FaceMega. THE social networks have made available a large amount of video and pictures. L’To the he can tamper with them and give life to many deepfakes whose falseness is not always easy to prove. For now, the sponsored web app has been removed from theApple Store and now it is no longer downloadable even on the Google Play Store.
The big techs have repeatedly specified (even during a press conference in 2020) that the deepfake phenomenon will be firmly opposed, but it is likely that platforms such as FaceMega and their products, video or audio, will be increasingly widespread, reaching people who are unaware the impact they can have on one’s life.