You know that deepfakes can be devastating to one's reputation and are very difficult to detect if created correctly. Microsoft thought of tackling this problem with the release of a tool that can detect them.
The threat of deepfakes is so significant, it caused Facebook to ban all deepfake content. However, the biggest obstacle is how if the creator has knowledge they look very convincing. So the localization and confirming a deepfake is very difficult.
Facebook prohibits deepfakes and Photoshopped photos because they cheat users.
As mentioned in Microsoft On the Issues, the company wants to change that with a new tool. It's called Microsoft Video Authenticator and it analyzes video to look for the "seams" left behind in the creation of a deepfake. These seams are invisible to the human eye, but one computers can detect them using frame-by-frame analysis.
To prevent any reverse engineering of the new technology, Microsoft Video Authenticator is not released to the public. Microsoft distributes its application only to news organizations and political parties. So they can use the tool to separate the real from the fake.
However, Microsoft has announced a second technology for detecting deepfakes. The company proposes a system where a content creator can add tags to his videos with a unique "signature". If the video is edited, a different signature will be created than the original, specifying deepfake.
Deep Fakes and the Infocalypse author Nina Schick states:
The only really common use we have seen so far is non-consensual pornography against women.
However, they are expected to be ubiquitous in about three to five years, so we need to develop these tools for the future.
However, as detection capabilities improve, so will the ability to create.
Deepfakes are a major problem for media credibility informationand companies need a way to separate them.
Microsoft has released the tool to detect edited videos, however, we do not know if it is enough to locate deepfake creators it has not yet seen.