TECH NEWS – China’s new deepfake regulation targets anything that “belittle the reputation and honor of others.”
There is no question that deepfake is a problem. It has become clear over the years with people using artificially intelligent deepfake programs to scam, defame and generally spread misinformation. China has taken a step to tackle the problem with a new law. The legislation requires that anything made using deep synth tech must be labelled as such.
The rules are outlined jointly by the Chinese Cyberspace Administration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and even the Ministry of Public Security (via Zdnet) in a recent bulletin. It details the concerns that led to the law’s adoption and identifies a very long list of technologies involved.
“While deep synthesis services meet user needs and improve user experience, they are also used by some unscrupulous people to produce, copy, publish, and disseminate illegal information, slander, belittle the reputation and honor of others,“ the statement says.
It is not just your arse that is targeted by the new legislation. It also applies to any facial manipulation, gesture manipulation. Anything that uses deep learning, virtual reality, text/sound/image generation using synthetic algorithms, virtual scenes, and even anything generated using text-to-speech technology will have to be so labelled. The list goes on. This makes sense, as advances have made it extremely difficult to detect deepfake content with the naked eye.
Of course, there is a technology designed to detect it, such as Intel’s FakeCatcher, which has an accuracy of around 96%. But it goes without saying that we should not resort to such tactics just to make sure something is real. The average person on Facebook isn’t going to bother running everything they scroll past through the recognition apps. This situation could certainly disrupt what the Communication calls “the good ecology of cyberspace”.
Frankly, it is a wonder that this technology has been allowed to operate unchecked in China for so long.
As for the United States, the IACP’s Chief of Police magazine explains that “only a few states have deepfake-specific laws because of a lack of awareness”.
Texas prohibits deepfakes that influence elections. Virginia bans deepfake porn. And California has banned “malicious deepfakes within 60 days of an election and nonconsensual deepfake pornography.” Which, while a step in the right direction, is not nearly as thorough as China’s revised position on the phenomenon.
The announcement notes that one of the reasons for introducing the regulation is to “promote the standardized development of in-depth synthesis services.” Whether the regulation will have the effect of stifling creativity in tandem is yet to be seen. At the very least, I think we can all support legislation against deepfake pornography.
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