China Makes Deepfakes and Fake News Illegal

Internet regulators in China have now banned fake news and fake video content including deepfakes.

As reported by Reuters, the Cyberspace Administration of China said that any use of virtual reality or artificial intelligence would need to be clearly marked in a way that was visible to users; breaching these rules could be considered a criminal offense.

The rules, which will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, have been put in place because of the threat fake news poses to "endanger national security, disrupt social stability, disrupt social order and infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of others," the Cyberspace Administration's website states. It's also possible that the Chinese government could make deepfake technology illegal outright, according to statements made earlier this year.

Such a move is somewhat ironic; China is known for its deeply censorious government that takes stringent control over what its users see online. Recently, the Chinese government blocked access to all versions of Wikipedia without reason, although it is speculated that it related to the upcoming anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4. With the Chinese government encouraging companies to be self-censorious, thousands of low-wage workers can be employed to police content.

In the United States, deepfakes have also raised concern among politicians. In October, Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Warner each sent letters to major social media platforms including Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch, and LinkedIn about the dangers deepfakes could pose with regards to spreading misinformation to the public - something that has plagued elections in the US.

"We believe it is vital that your organization have plans in place to address the attempted use of these technologies," the senators wrote. "We also urge you to develop industry standards for sharing, removing, archiving, and confronting the sharing of synthetic content."

Currently, artificial intelligence can detect whether a piece of content is real or faked; university researchers have developed artificially-intelligent algorithms that can register inconspicuous artifacts left behind by editing tools which can then be used to determine if a video has been tampered with. And should that prove not to be enough, there are always the mice.

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