- Tomorrow’s Great Digital Divide: Content With or Without Provenance In a world rife with distrust of information and disinformation, tracing the source and history of the media we consume –its provenance– can inform our trust. But the reality is a significant portion of online content will always exist without traceable provenance. How do we prepare for these challenges and best mitigate potential risks and harms?
- French AI Action Summit: Critical Information Actors Must Be Centered in Public Interest AI The 2024 election year began by highlighting fears of AI’s profound societal impact on information ecosystems and ended with post-election narratives downplaying concerns about AI as exaggerated. This ignored a key truth: those most affected by AI shortcomings and harms—particularly in underserved regions and among critical frontline information actors —were overlooked, and opportunities for them […]
- Toward Equitable and Effective AI Detection Tools: A Call for Standards That Serve All Communities Written by shirin anlen As generative AI technology evolves, so do the tools designed to detect it. Yet, in the race to develop high-performing detection systems, a critical element risks being overlooked. Effectiveness is often measured through technical benchmarks: accuracy, speed, scalability, and versatility. While these metrics are important, they fail to capture the full […]
- Fortifying the Truth in the Age of Synthetic Media and Generative AI: Perspectives from Asia-Pacific In August 2024, WITNESS hosted in Bangkok, Thailand, over 40 journalists, fact-checkers, technologists, policy advocates, creators, human rights defenders and community activists from different parts of the Asia-Pacific region. In our two-day workshop, we discussed threats and opportunities that generative AI and synthetic media bring to audiovisual witnessing, identifying and prioritizing collective responses that can have a positive impact on the information landscape.
- Fortifying the Truth in the Age of Synthetic Media In May 2024, WITNESS hosted in São Paulo, Brazil, over 25 journalists, fact-checkers, technologists, policy advocates, creators, human rights defenders and community activists from different parts of the country. In our two-day workshop, we discussed threats and opportunities that generative AI and synthetic media bring to audiovisual witnessing, identifying and prioritizing collective responses that can […]
- Fortifying the Truth in the Age of Synthetic Media and Generative AI: [Read this blog in Spanish] In August 2023, WITNESS hosted in Bogotá, Colombia, over 25 journalists, fact-checkers, technologists, policy advocates, creators, human rights defenders and community activists from all of South America and Mexico. In our two-day workshop, we discussed threats and opportunities that generative AI and synthetic media bring to audiovisual witnessing, identifying and […]
- Using Generative AI for Human Rights Advocacy In this post we explore the potential of using generative AI and synthetic media tools (“AI tools”) to support human rights advocacy and social critique–but only with appropriate caution and ethical considerations.
- Building Human Rights Oriented Guidelines for Synthetic Media Takeaways/TLDR: Partnership on AI, in collaboration with WITNESS and other key allies, has published the Responsible Practices for Synthetic Media Framework, which offers guidelines for developing, creating, sharing, and publishing synthetic media ethically and responsibly. The Framework is directed towards those building technology and infrastructure for synthetic media, those creating synthetic media, and those distributing […]
- Pre-Empting a Crisis: Deepfake Detection Skills + Global Access to Media Forensics Tools In a recent WIRED Op-ed I share the story of a recent deepfake panic in Myanmar. Spoiler: It probably wasn’t a deepfake… but it has important implications for how we think about access to deepfake detection technology and what skills, capacities and escalation options are needed. You can read more about the story here. “RECENTLY […]
- What We Learned from the Pretoria Deepfakes Workshop (Full Report) —February 19, 2020 On 26 November 2019, WITNESS hosted a workshop at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, on deepfakes and synthetic media. Today we are releasing a full-length report on the proceedings of the workshop detailing presentation sessions, discussion points and a range of solution areas identified, compiled by Ade Johnson of the university’s […]
- Twitter Released A Draft Policy on Synthetic Media. Here’s What Stood Out to the Activists We Consulted. — January 28, 2020 Earlier this month, Facebook released its policy on manipulated media. As a civil society organization with expert knowledge on the subject, WITNESS was asked to give input on the policy while it was under development, and it’s worth recognizing the positives of Facebook’s pro-active approach in developing a response to this […]
- The Pros and Cons of Facebook’s New Deepfakes Policy Yesterday Facebook released its policy on enforcing against manipulated media, detailing how the company would respond to deepfakes, and to a lesser extent shallowfakes. On Wednesday 8 January 2020 the US Congress will hold another hearing on digital manipulation, following on from the first congressional hearing on deepfakes in June 2019. Over the past two years WITNESS has […]
- To Fight Deepfakes Build Media Literacy, Say African Activists —December 23, 2019 In late November 2019, WITNESS led a workshop on deepfakes at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Building on the success of a workshop in Brazil in July, and with another workshop in Malaysia scheduled for 2020, the event series has been a unique effort to engage academics, journalists, researchers and human rights activists […]
- In Africa, Fear of State Violence Informs Deepfake Threat Our deepfakes preparedness workshop in South Africa revealed that perceived threats from synthetic media vary greatly by region, especially where repressive government is a factor.
- Deepfakes and Synthetic Media: Updated Survey of Solutions against Malicious Usages Last updated: June 2019 (NOTE: please send feedback on areas/examples we are missing to sam [at} witness.org: this is not a comprehensive list!) This is a survey of solutions around the emerging and potential malicious uses of so-called “deepfakes” and other forms of AI-generated “synthetic media” and how we push back to defend evidence, the truth […]
