A shocking video of President Joe Biden went viral on Facebook and it has been the center of controversy, depicting the country's leader as a "pedophile" and showing inappropriate scenes. Initially, it was not taken down, and Facebook defended its stand on the video, saying that it did not violate any policies of the platform, but after a long and careful deliberation, was deemed inappropriate.
Deepfake scams are already massive after generative AI soared, and this is now the horror that many face as there are limited ways how to detect these fake identities online.
The Meta Oversight Board made a decision today, and it declared that the Fake Biden video which went viral last year on Facebook was fake, leading to calling out the platform for its flawed policies. However, it took almost a year for it to be reviewed and for the company to realize its mistakes and shortcomings in blocking these kinds of videos on the platform.
Initially, Facebook repeatedly claimed that the video did not violate anything on its policies including hate speech, bullying and harassment, and manipulated media.
Moreover, it was not a deepfake video nor has it manipulated the President's speech, hence the no violations in its policies.
Nevertheless, Meta defended Facebook's claims, saying in its blog post that it was not in violation of any of its policies.
The Meta Oversight Board is best known to be an independent panel of experts who reviewed the case and pointed out Meta and Facebook's shortcomings in these, further claiming that its policies are flawed.
Additionally, the Board is now calling upon the platform about its "incoherent" policies to be reviewed and revised accordingly, to focus more on how content is created and not its effects.
Deepfake and AI-Generated Content
The world is now facing another digital threat after the massive development and wide availability of AI tools that can create images, videos, or live feeds easily. One of the most notorious deepfake campaigns was to disrupt the 2024 US Presidential Elections where a yet unknown group has launched a President Joe Biden robocall that asked New Hampshire voters to forego their primary election rights.
Moreover, there was also the shameful deepfakes created using the likeness of a renowned artist, notoriously known as Taylor Swift AI porn, depicting the singer-songwriter in explicit images. It was also the center of controversy when it first went out, with Swift being victimized using the AI tools present, later discovered to be ElevenLabs' generative AI tool that allowed it to be made.
Generative AI has helped the world in many ways, and it offered a way to create limitless media using the data available online which the LLM studied. However, abusing its use is surely frowned upon, especially in maligning renowned personalities and politicians, with the POTUS being one of the usual targets in these deepfakes, something that led Facebook to revisit its flawed policies.
