The Problematic State of Deepfakes in Society
In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements in Research in Daily Life 1 by
TENEDERO, THEODORE JEAN D.
AQUINO, ALLEN BRADLEY B.
GARCIA, JHAREB SHERWIN G.
BALBOA, GIAN CARLO B.
TONGCO, KASHMIR ALDRICH A.
CHAVEZ, DUANE KENSHIN M.
NUQUI, RALPH KENNETH B.
Irish Grace Aquino
Research in Daily Life 1
Teacher-in-Charge
CHAPTER I. THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND
Introduction
Deepfakes are a problem in the modern era since it is used for the wrong reasons. It was
implemented in November 2017 by a Reddit user, this face-swapping tool was used for many
reasons that are not really helpful but used for malicious intent. For example, scamming others
with their favorite celebrities, giving out misinformation to others using trusted people, a tool to
pleasure someone using another's face and many other uses of this tool. This tool is an
endangerment to someone's identity, personal information and other private information just to
get either revenge on someone or just for laughs. It is a current issue since it's released and we
are currently heading into an “infopocalypse” where we can't identify what is real or fake
because of the artificial intelligence evolving from time to time (Fallis, 2020).
Background of the Study
Deepfakes is an artificial intelligence tool that can be considered very controversial to
use, the main threat that deepfakes poses is that it can easily lead people to acquire false beliefs.
Another thing about it is that it's getting more and more difficult to detect whether it's real or fake
since the technology for it is getting more advanced as the years go by. According to Fallis in
2020, people might take deepfakes to be genuine videos and believe that what they depict
actually occurred.
Statement of the Problem
Deepfake technology has triggered the unprecedented challenge that is now cutting
across every domain from media integrity, security, to personal privacy. Deepfakes-generating
audio and video pieces using artificial intelligence, so imperceptibly close that they are almost
indistinguishable-may cause harm to the public imagination and perception. In politics,
deepfakes may be applied in the conception of anti-democratic schemes aimed at deceiving
electorates or tampering with electoral outcomes. They can pose harassment, identity theft, and
reputational damage in personal contexts. Moreover, the added threat introduced by deepfakes,
amidst the current mishandling and complexity of misinformation, only makes things worse,
since people are increasingly unable to separate reality from fabrication. Such implications of
deepfake technology require prompt attention and efforts from the government, the technologists,
and the teachers to establish ethical norms, enhance media literacy, and avoid and prevent the
harms that the powerful tool may bring along.
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this study is to gain insight into how deepfake has impacted the people
that have been used against it. The researchers will delve into the negative aspects of deepfake
and explain how it could do more harm than good. The intent of conducting this study is due to
how Deepfake is weaponized as a tool to ruin lives by making false information and evidence of
something that is not true.
Research Questions
1. What ways are people exposed to deepfake through their online interactions?
2. How will the awareness of deepfake impact the people’s use of social media??
3. What are the ethical concerns regarding the use of deepfake amongst the people’s trust
online?
Significance of the Study
The researchers chose to conduct this study for the benefit of the following:
Teachers
The study may be material beneficial for teachers because it concerns knowledge about how
deepfakes can be manipulated in educational teaching. The research being conducted is relevant to
teachers who feel the need to defend their professional integrity. Deepfake technology can create fake
information that can be damaging to teachers’ jobs or to their relationships with students.
Students
This study is very significant for students given that it provides on the developing
problem of deepfake technology and its possible effect on their digital life and education.
Students will be more able to critically evaluate the credibility of internet resources, and prevent
becoming victims to manipulated information or spreading deceptive ideas.
Parents
Using information from this research, parents should be able to teach their children how
to distinguish between and react to deep fakes. The study's significance illustrates how parents
can benefit from being aware of deep fakes, allowing them to protect their children better and
develop a safer online environment.
Scope and Delimitations
The researchers wanted to know if "The Problematic State of Deepfakes in Society"
will be developed from the negative social consequences of deepfakes themselves: disseminating
false information, also called misinformation; losing trust in media; and reputational and
personal privacy damage. Specific concerns include their use in disinformation operations,
harassment, as well as political manipulation; and points will be made about how vulnerable
populations, public figures, and marginalized communities, are targeted even more often. Then,
it'll be followed by discussions on ethical concerns of creators and platform responsibilities.
Later, the discussion of ethical questions regarding the role of the platforms and creators'
responsibilities would also take place. The intent of the research is to find broader patterns
related to the effects of deepfake instead of discussing technical details or case studies. The
research will solely focus on these negative effects that mostly occur in the United States
between 2017 until now.
Definition of Terms
Deep Fake – Fake media files generated using AI (deep learning) principles to alter or create
images, audio, and videos so that they appear real but may be lying about reality.
Deep Learning — A branch of machine learning based on a set of algorithms that model and
structure networks in layers (hence this is known as deep, stacke neural net) used to analyze
datasets, no different from traditional machine learning.
Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) — A type of fake media deep learning model
designed around two neural networks (a generator and a discriminator) that compete with each
other to generate more believable synthetic media.
Face Swapping — In this process, one person's face is substituted into a video for another. This
is the go-to trick that shows people bearing the faces of other individuals making public
statements they presumably never made or doing things they probably never did.
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES
In this chapter, we provide background information on deepfake technology, discuss
related incidents, conduct a literature review on this issue, and outline methodologies used to
combat these issues. The literature review includes statistics and figures that illustrate damage
caused due to the misuse of deepfake content. These are then justified by further explaining the
mechanisms based on existing works on deepfake technology.
Fake Identity leading to fake news
In recent years, fake news has become an issue that is a threat to public discourse, human
society, and democracy (Borges et al., 2018; Qayyum et al., 2019). Fake news refers to fictitious news
style content that is fabricated to deceive the public (Aldwairi & Alwahedi, 2018; Jang & Kim, 2018).
False information spreads quickly through social media, where it can impact millions of users (Figueira &
Oliveira, 2017). Presently, one out of five Internet users get their news via YouTube, second only to
Facebook (Anderson, 2018). This rise in popularity of video highlights the need for tools to confirm
media and news content authenticity, as novel technologies allow convincing manipulation of video
(Anderson, 2018). Given the ease in obtaining and spreading misinformation through social media
platforms, it is increasingly hard to know what to trust, which results in harmful consequences for
informed decision making, among other things (Borges et al., 2018; Britt et al., 2019). Indeed, today we
live in what some have called a “post-truth” era, which is characterized by digital disinformation and
information warfare led by malevolent actors running false information campaigns to manipulate public
opinion (Anderson, 2018; Qayyum et al., 2019; Zannettou et al., 2019).
Detecting deepfakes
Detecting deepfakes is getting more difficult as the technology that creates deepfakes is
getting more sophisticated. In 2018, researchers in the United States demonstrated that deepfake
faces didn’t blink like humans do, which was considered a great way to detect if images and
videos were fake or not. However, as soon as the study was published, deepfake creators started
fixing this, making it even more difficult to detect deepfakes. Oftentimes, the research that is
designed to help detect deepfakes just ends up helping make deepfake technology better. But not
all deepfakes are products of sophisticated technology. Poor-quality material is usually easier to
detect, as the lip syncs may not match well or the skin tone may seem odd. Additionally, details
like hair strands are often harder for deepfake technicians to create. Studies have also shown that
jewelry, teeth and skin that create erratic reflections can also reveal deepfakes. Generally,
algorithms today are very capable of rendering frontal face profiles better than side profiles
because side profiles are harder to emulate according to ZDNet, a technology magazine. As
deepfake technology becomes more complex and harder to detect, more resources are becoming
available specifically to help individuals detect deepfakes on their own while scrolling through
social media and/or other online forums. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) created a Detect Fakes website to help people identify deepfakes by focusing on small
details.
Negative Impact of deepfakes in a person’s life
In other words, deepfakes may significantly impact an individual due to reputation,
privacy, and mental distress. Perhaps the most negative impact is character assassination.
Deepfakes can make a realistic video or audio clip that reputates someone by misrepresenting
them in the public. Furthermore, there is a serious privacy concern when deepfake technology is
used improperly. It's possible for others to notice their image in compromising ways or that
they've been defamed without their consent, which is illegal and can leave them feeling helpless
(Chesney & Citron, 2019). This may culminate in long-term psychological problems-anxiety and
depression -and fears of being misrepresented in media. The legal landscape of the deepfake is
still developing, and generally, these victims are left without any possibilities for redress. This
often means that many perpetrators do not face penalties since the legal framework has not
honed in on the nuances of deepfake technology (Franks, 2019). Such an omission in the legal
and statutory instruments in place only worsens the results but also increases avenues for such
practices to be committed with impunity. Deepfakes can bring devastating impacts to people's
personal lives, including reputation damage, privacy violations, and huge psychological distress.
The future development of advanced features of technology would require the conception of
careful legal protections against harming people with the malignant effects of deepfakes.
Conceptual Framework
This model shows how we use deepfakes for numerous terrible things to other users.
Misinformation being one of them, using a trusted person to give out information that is false can
lead to some users not trusting that person anymore.
Now under that factor the model has 3 subsections of the usage in deepfakes, first one
being plagiarism, using someone else's face to steal their own opinion and claiming it as yours
can count as plagiarizing someone's work. Next one is scam, scammers are notorious for using
deepfakes by simply just swapping the scammer's own face with someone famous and their
voice to convince users to click the link of a scam site and get their personal information and
lastly being identity theft, these are used for either getting a revenge on someone or just outright
using to steal your private info like your social security number.
REFERENCES
Mustak, M., Salminen, J., Mäntymäki, M., Rahman, A., & Dwivedi, Y. K. (2022). Deepfakes:
Deceptions, mitigations, and opportunities. Journal of Business Research, 154, 113368.
[Link]
Jacobson, N. (2024, February 26). Deepfakes and their impact on society. CPI OpenFox.
[Link]
Brooks, C. (2024, June 28). 1 in 10 Executives Say Their Companies Have Already Faced
Deepfake Threats. [Link]. [Link]
Birrer, A., & Just, N. (2024). What we know and don’t know about deepfakes: An investigation
into the state of the research and regulatory landscape. New Media & Society.
[Link]
Javier, E. (2024). Artificial intelligence threat makes data protection priority for Philippine
military. [Link]
Kietzmann, J., Lee, L. W., McCarthy, I. P., & Kietzmann, T. C. (2019). Deepfakes: Trick or treat?
Business Horizons, 63(2), 135–146. [Link]
Vaccari, C., & Chadwick, A. (2020). Deepfakes and Disinformation: Exploring the impact of
synthetic political video on deception, uncertainty, and trust in news. Social Media + Society,
6(1), 205630512090340. [Link]
Fallis, D. (2020). The epistemic threat of deepfakes. Philosophy & Technology, 34(4), 623–643.
[Link]
Hancock, J. T., & Bailenson, J. N. (2021). The social impact of Deepfakes. Cyberpsychology
Behavior and Social Networking, 24(3), 149–152. [Link]
Jacobsen, B. N., & Simpson, J. (2023). The tensions of deepfakes. Information Communication
& Society, 27(6), 1095–1109. [Link]
How Deepfakes are Impacting Culture, Privacy, and Reputation. (n.d.).
[Link]
Mika Westerlund (2019). The emergence of deep fake technology: review (2019)
[Link]
Kaeli BritT (2023). How are deep fakes dangerous. (2023)
[Link]