The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s cyberspace watchdog, has issued the Provisions on the Administration of Deep Synthesis of Internet-based Information Services (the Deep Synthesis Provisions).
Key points
- Deep synthesis technology is commonly known as “deepfake”, a combination of “deep learning” and “fake”.
- Deep synthesis is defined as the use of technologies, including deep learning and augmented reality, to generate text, images, audio and video to create virtual scenes.
- One of the most notorious applications of the technology is deepfakes, where synthetic media is used to swap the face or voice of one person for another.
- Deepfakes are getting harder to detect with the advancement of technology. It is used to generate celebrity porn videos, produce fake news, and commit financial fraud among other wrongdoings.
- Under the guidelines of China’s new rules, companies and platforms using the technology must first receive consent from individuals before they edit their voice or image.
- Deepfakes are a compilation of artificial images and audio put together with machine learning algorithms to spread misinformation and replace a real person’s appearance, voice, or both with similar artificial likenesses or voices.
- It can create people who do not exist and it can fake real people saying and doing things they did not say or do.
- The term deepfake originated in 2017, when an anonymous Reddit user called himself “Deepfakes.”
(Source: The Hindu)
