Tech giant Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, ETR:FB2A, SWX:FB), owner of social media sites Facebook and Instagram, is set to roll out new rules aimed at stemming the tide of synthetic videos designed to manipulate users.
A new flagging system will label photorealistic AI-generated images with a disclosure that they were "imagined with AI”.
Labels for AI-generated images will be applied in all languages in the coming months, with a focus on the upcoming election year.
Efforts to stay ahead of deceptive AI-generated content include developing technology to detect AI content without markers.
Is it AI? The line between AI and human-made content can be blurry, but labeling it shouldn’t be. We're rolling out industry-leading practices that will identify AI-generated images across @facebook, @instagram and @threadsapp__.https://t.co/CCsMmNh40m pic.twitter.com/hGcsaBwSeW
— Meta Newsroom (@MetaNewsroom) February 6, 2024
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, commented: "As the difference between human and synthetic content gets blurred, people want to know where the boundary lies.
"People are often coming across AI-generated content for the first time and our users have told us they appreciate transparency around this new technology."
He also stated that some AI companies have started to add invisible watermarks to AI-generated content, which Meta can detect.
However, this does not tackle the proliferation of disturbing AI-generated content produced by bad-faith actors.
In a rare instance of self-censorship, Elon Musk ordered Twitter/X to block all text searches for pop superstar Taylor Swift after fake, compromising images began spreading across the social media platform.
Deepfake images are also being used for political purposes, with fake images of Donald Trump and Joe Biden being spread online.
Earlier this year, more than 100 deepfake news videos were uncovered on Facebook, making false accusations against UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
While companies are starting to include signals in their image generators, Clegg said they haven’t started including them in AI tools that generate audio and video at the same scale, “so we can’t yet detect those signals and label this content from other companies”.
He continued: “This work is especially important as this is likely to become an increasingly adversarial space in the years ahead.
“People and organisations that actively want to deceive people with AI-generated content will look for ways around safeguards that are put in place to detect it.
“Across our industry and society more generally, we’ll need to keep looking for ways to stay one step ahead.”
Though not unique to social media, fake news has proliferated in the social media age.
In a 2022 research piece published in the International Journal of Data Science and Analytics titled :‘The disaster of misinformation: a review of research in social media’, researchers said that the spread of misinformation in social media “has become a severe threat to public interests”.
The report singled out the Covid-19 pandemic, Australian bushfires, and US elections as key fake news battlegrounds.
Former US President Donal Trump famously weaponised the term ‘fake news’ to discredit any negative news reports during his term in office.