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PC Mag alerts consumers of the dangers behind deepfake such as exploitation, bullying, and other forms of scams orchestrated by these technologies.

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FBI: Scammers Using Public Photos, Videos for Deepfake Extortion Schemes

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The culprits are using AI technology to take benign photos of people, including minors, and turn them into sexually explicit images in order to extort money, the FBI warns.

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Library Journal provides a comprehensive background on deepfake technology including how it has been abused with misinformation and involuntary pornography. There is discussion how, "our current information literacy tools are not up to the challenge of widespread synthetic media, and it presents issues to tomorrow’s students and critical thinkers." (LJ).

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Deepfakes, a portmanteau of "deep learning" artificial intelligence (AI) and "fake media," are becoming more common, and a better understanding of what they are and how they work "is vital in the current information landscape," said John Mack Freeman, Suwanee branch manager for Gwinnett County Public Library, GA, in an hour-long presentation as part of this year's Core Top Tech Trends panel at the American Library Association's Midwinter Virtual Meeting.

Deepfakes, a portmanteau of "deep learning" artificial intelligence (AI) and "fake media," are becoming more common, and whether they're used for entertainment or deception, a better understanding of what they are and how they work "is vital in the current information landscape," said John Mack Freeman, Suwanee branch manager for Gwinnett County Public Library, GA, in an hour-long presentation as part of this year's Core Top Tech Trends panel at the American Library Association's Midwinter Virtual Meeting. In a change from prior years, all Top Tech Trends Panelists focused on a common theme-the potential dangers of new technologies that libraries may be using now or in the future.

Deepfakes "are media that take a person in an existing image or video and replaces them with someone else's likeness using artificial neural networks," Freeman explained. "The term is often used interchangeably with phrases like AI-generated media, generative media, and personalized media. It can include any or all of audio, images, video, or speech synthesis to create a realistic, artificial result."

Freeman went on to describe a "spectrum of synthetic audio-visual media." On the one end are deepfakes-very convincing productions developed using AI, virtual performance mapping, voice synthesis, and face swapping. These currently require a high degree of technical skill to create and are time-consuming and expensive to produce. "Common parlance" has broadened the term to include rotoscope face swapping, face-altering filters on social media platforms, and generally deceptive editing. But those techniques require much less skill to use. So, on the other end of the spectrum, these "cheapfakes" are "easier to see as synthetic, and much less likely to pass muster upon investigation."

While there is generally a steep learning curve, much of the software used to produce deepfakes is open source and freely available. "Deepfakes of various quality are certainly not beyond the abilities of a devoted amateur," Freeman said. In addition. there are online portals offering to create deepfakes and voice cloning for nominal fees.

Freeman described the technology used to create deepfakes as inherently neutral, noting that "one of their most prevalent uses...is simply to entertain," with many enthusiasts simply creating memes for social media. At the higher end, movie studios employ the technology to make older (or even deceased) actors look young in flashback scenes, and advertising companies have used deepfakes to put a new spin or humorous twist on older commercials. Last year, India's Bharatiya Janata Party used deepfake technology to overcome language barriers, making a politician appear to speak in different languages and dialects in a video ad. And the ALS Association's Project Revoice is a non-profit voice cloning initiative developed to help people with the neurodegenerative disease preserve their unique voice using Augmented/Alternative Communication devices when they lose the ability to speak.

However, "while the technology has certainly been put to some positive uses, the concerns and interest around deepfakes primarily come from the issues where it's causing the biggest problems," Freeman said. The most widespread problematic use-thus far-has been involuntary pornography, in which the likenesses of female celebrities are substituted onto the bodies of pornographic actresses. "The victims are mostly high-profile women in the entertainment industry from the United States, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Canada, and India," Freeman explained.

The potential for deepfakes to deceive is already being recognized by other kinds of criminals. "According to an August 2019 report in the Wall Street Journal, a criminal used deepfake software to impersonate an executive's voice," Freeman said. "The CEO of a UK energy company thought he was speaking to the CEO of its German parent company, who asked him to send funds to a Hungarian supplier." Within an hour, $243,000 had been transferred to the criminal's account. As the technology becomes more widespread, it is likely that such phishing attempts against individuals will become more sophisticated and easier to generate.

In the current era of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and hyper-partisanship, it doesn't require much imagination to consider ways the technology could be used to deceive and smear politicians, celebrities, or even ordinary people on social media platforms. As an example, Freeman mentioned a 2018 fake interview between Allie Beth Stuckey of Blaze TV and United States representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The video wasn't technically a deepfake, but it used deceptive editing to make it appear that Ocasio-Cortez was stumped by Stuckey's questions. The post received over a million views before a New York Times reporter pointed out that there was no disclaimer describing the video as satire. The network added the disclaimer, and Stuckey claimed on Twitter that this should have been obvious to viewers even without the disclaimer.

"There is nothing stopping anyone from publishing a piece of malicious content that is intended to deceive and then, once found out, claiming that it is merely satire, and that those who are opposed to it are against artistic expression, don't get the joke, or are pro censorship," Freeman said.

Librarians should be monitoring this trend, because while the majority of deceptive videos would currently fall under the "cheapfake" umbrella, this won't always be the case. And "if deepfakes proliferate, then authority and information [will] continue to decay," Freeman said. Viewer confidence in the veracity of video content could erode, and politicians and others may begin leveraging that lack of confidence to disparage accurate content. "There have been repeated instances of politicians claiming unflattering videos were deepfakes, and proving those claims correct-or not-has proven impossible," Freeman noted.

In addition, it presents a new challenge in terms of information literacy education. "Many of us are involved in teaching information literacy in [K-12] schools, colleges, universities, and to the public, and as you all know, the topic is already big enough and hard enough to teach without something else gumming up the works," Freeman said. "In my opinion, our current information literacy tools are not up to the challenge of widespread synthetic media, and it presents issues to tomorrow's students and critical thinkers." Freeman's presentation includes an extensive bibliography of resources for those interested in learning more about deepfakes and the emerging challenges posed by synthetic media.

Freeman was joined on the three-hour Top Tech Trends panel by Jeanie Austin from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Callan Bignoli, library director for the Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA; Thomas Ferren, program officer for ALA's new Core division; and TJ Lamanna, emerging technologies librarian at the Cherry Hill Public Library, NJ. The presentations are available on demand for registered attendees, and Freeman's presentation opens the session following a brief introduction. Check back for additional coverage of Top Tech Trends.

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Deepfakes and the Evolving Misinformation Ecosystem | ALA Midwinter 2021

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Deepfakes, a portmanteau of "deep learning" artificial intelligence (AI) and "fake media," are becoming more common, and a better understanding of what they are and how they work "is vital in the current information landscape," said John Mack Freeman, Suwanee branch manager for Gwinnett County Public Library, GA, in an hour-long presentation as part of this year's Core Top Tech Trends panel at the American Library Association's Midwinter Virtual Meeting.

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The Department of Education article on AI describes how educators can take their own experiences with this mechanism and applying this into the classroom. There is a listening portion at the conclusion of the article which allows educators to identify risks and benefits of AI when structuring their curricula.

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Today, many priorities for improvements to teaching and learning are unmet. Educators seek technology-enhanced approaches addressing these priorities that would be safe, effective, and scalable. Like all of us, educators use AI-powered services in their everyday lives, such as voice assistants in their homes; tools that can correct grammar, complete sentences, and write essays; and automated trip planning on their phones. As a result, educators see opportunities to use AI-powered capabilities like speech recognition to increase the support available to students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and others who could benefit from greater adaptivity and personalization in digital tools for learning. They are further exploring how AI can enable writing or improving lessons, as well as their process for finding, choosing, and adapting material for use in their lessons.

Educators are also aware of new risks. Useful, powerful functionality can also be accompanied with new data privacy and security risks. Educators recognize that AI can automatically produce output that is inappropriate or wrong. They are wary that the associations or automations created by AI may amplify unwanted biases. They have noted new ways in which students may represent others' work as their own. They are well-aware of "teachable moments" and pedagogical strategies that a human teacher can address but are undetected or misunderstood by AI models. They worry whether recommendations suggested by an algorithm would be fair. Educators' concerns are manifold.

Everyone in education has a responsibility to harness the good to serve educational priorities while also protecting against the dangers that may arise as a result of AI being integrated in educational technology.

NEW!! Report on AI and the Future of Teaching & Learning

Key Insights

AI enables new forms of interaction. Students and teachers can speak, gesture, sketch, and use other natural human modes of communication to interact with a computational resource and each other. AI can generate human-like responses, as well. These new forms of action may provide supports to students with disabilities.

AI can help educators address variability in student learning. With AI, designers can anticipate and address the long tail of variations in how students can successfully learn-whereas traditional curricular resources were designed to teach to the middle or most common learning pathways. For example, AI-enabled educational technology may be deployed to adapt to each student's English language abilities with greater support for the range of skills and needs among English learners.

AI supports powerful forms of adaptivity. Conventional technologies adapt based upon the correctness of student answers. AI enables adapting to a student's learning process as it unfolds step-by-step, not simply providing feedback on right or wrong answers. Specific adaptations may enable students to continue strong progress in a curriculum by working with their strengths and working around obstacles.

AI can enhance feedback loops. AI can increase the quality and quantity of feedback provided to students and teachers, as well as suggesting resources to advance their teaching and learning.

AI can support educators. Educators can be involved in designing AI-enabled tools to make their jobs better and to enable them to better engage and support their students.

Recommendations: Call to Action for Education Leaders

Recommendation #1: Emphasize Humans in the Loop

We reject the notion of AI as replacing teachers. Teachers and other people must be "in the loop" whenever AI is applied in order to notice patterns and automate educational processes. We call upon all constituents to adopt Humans-in-the-Loop as a key criteria.

Recommendation #2: Align AI Models to a Shared Vision for Education

We call upon educational decision makers, researchers, and evaluators to determine the quality of an educational technology based not only on outcomes, but also based on the degree to which the models at the heart of the AI tools and systems align to a shared vision for teaching and learning. The figure to the right describes the important qualities of AI models for education leaders to consider.

Recommendation #3: Design Using Modern Learning Principles

Achieving effective systems requires more than processing "big data"-it requires more than data science. Applications of AI must be based on established, modern learning principles, the wisdom of educational practitioners, and should leverage the expertise in the educational assessment community around detecting bias and improving fairness. Going forward, we also must seek to create AI systems that are culturally responsive and culturally sustaining, leveraging the growth of published techniques for doing so. Further, most early AI systems had few specific supports for students with disabilities and English learners and we must ensure that AI-enabled learning resources are intentionally inclusive of these students.

Recommendation #4: Prioritize Strengthening Trust

Technology can only help us to achieve educational objectives when we trust it. Yet, we learned through a series of public listening sessions that distrust of educational technology and AI is commonplace. Because trust develops as people meet and relate to each other, we call for a focus on building trust and establishing criteria for trustworthiness of emerging educational technologies within the associations, convenings, and professional organizations that bring educators, innovators, researchers, and policymakers together.

Recommendation #5: Inform and Involve Educators

We call on educational leaders to prioritize informing and involving educational constituents so they are prepared to investigate how and when AI fits specific teaching and learning needs, and what risks may rise. Now is the time to show the respect and value we hold for educators by informing and involving them in every step of the process of designing, developing, testing, improving, adopting, and managing AI-enabled educational technology. This includes involving educators in reviewing existing AI-enabled systems, tools, and data use in schools, designing new applications of AI based on teacher input, carrying out pilot evaluations of proposed new instructional tools, collaborating with developers to increase the trustworthiness of the deployed system, and raising issues about risks and unexpected consequences as the system is implemented.

Recommendation #6: Focus R&D on Addressing Context and Enhancing Trust and Safety

Research that focuses on how AI-enabled systems can adapt to context (diversity among learners, variability in instructional approaches, differences in educational settings) is essential to answering the question "Do specific applications of AI work in education, and if so, for whom and under what conditions?" We call upon researchers and their funders to prioritize investigations of how AI can address the long tail of learning variability and to seek advances in how AI can incorporate contextual considerations when detecting patterns and recommending options to students and teachers. Further, researchers should accelerate their attention to how to enhance trust and safety in AI-enabled systems for education.

Recommendation #7: Develop Education-Specific Guidelines and Guardrails

Data privacy regulation already covers educational technology; further, data security is already a priority of school educational technology leaders. Modifications and enhancements to the status quo will be required to address the new capabilities alongside the risks of AI. We call for involvement of all perspectives in the ecosystem to define a set of guidelines (such as voluntary disclosures and technology procurement checklists) and guardrails (such as enhancements to existing regulations or additional requirements) so that we can achieve safe and effective AI for education.

Listening Sessions

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology, with support from Digital Promise, held listening sessions about Artificial Intelligence (AI). We connected with all constituents involved in making decisions about technology in education, including but not limited to teachers, educational leaders, students, parents, technologists, researchers, and policy makers.

The goal of these listening sessions were to gather input, ideas, and engage in conversations that will help the Department shape a vision for AI policy that is inclusive of cutting-edge research and practices while also informed by the opportunities and risks.

Blog Posts

Need More Info?

Contact ed.tech@ed.gov with questions.

Please Include "OET AI" in the Subject Line

For a print-out and summary of the Artificial Intelligence Initiative, please review our AI One-pager

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Artificial Intelligence - Office of Educational Technology

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OET is working to develop policies and supports focused on the effective, safe, and fair use of AI-enabled educational technology.

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology delves into deepfake technologies spreading misinformation. The learning module assists students in identifying these mirages and seeking authoritative sources to verify the original sources and authenticity.

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A suite of Educator Resources includes items that resonate with the themes and learning goals of the module. We encourage teachers to draw on and adapt the Bibliography, Syllabus, and Design Prompts for the purposes of their own classes.

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Media Literacy in the Age of Deepfakes - MIT

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This learning module aims to equip students with the critical skills to better understand the threat of misinformation.

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Business Insider describes ways to detect deepfake technology including reverse image searches and assessing the source. Keeping track of lighting, dubbing, and video quality are other indicators.

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What is a deepfake? Everything you need to know about the AI-powered fake media

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Deepfakes use deep learning artificial intelligence to replace the likeness of one person with another in video and other digital media.

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Data Source lists helpful resources on how to detect deepfake content, including the analysis of EXIF metadata.

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Manipulating photographs has been a feature of photography ever since it was first invented 200 years ago.

Unfortunately, it is practically impossible to detect a fake or photoshopped image with 100% accuracy.

The software editing tools and techniques currently available are simply too sophisticated and powerful, and prevent image forensics tools from achieving such a high level of certainty.

However, there are a number of tools and techniques you can use to reach a 60-80% certainty that an image was modified.
The most common way to detect photoshopped or modified images is to use specialized photo forensics tools that detect and highlight tiny differences between pixels, often caused by photo editing. Other methods are analyzing EXIF data or training yourself to find evidence of photo manipulation.
7 Tools to detect photoshopped images

Forensically Beta is perhaps the best photo Forensics tool available right now, and best of all it's completely free.

Forensically scans a photo to detect modifications using a number of techniques such as:

Most of the techniques above are basically "X-rays" that scan an image's pixels to see which ones are legit, and which ones are fake.

For example, below is an unmodified photo alongside the Error Level Analysis.

While here is the same photo quickly modified in Paint, alongside it's Error Level Analysis.

As you can see, Forensically immediately picked up and highlighted the box with the big "MODIFICATION" text that I added in Paint.

Forensically is fairly simple to use, but it has a ton of features and settings you can play around with to properly figure out if an image is modified or not. So take your time.

Foto Forensics is similar to Forensically, but its only fake image detection algorithm is Error Level Analysis, while Forensically has five.

Still, it's a completely free tool and it works great if you want to cross reference with Forensically.

This site is an AI powered tool that tries to detect fake, modified or AI generated images.

In my experience, the accuracy is so-so:

That being said, the site can help in detecting photos that are made by AI image generators or other computer generated images.

Every single image on the Internet has a set of information parameters attached to it called EXIF data.

Certain EXIF data parameters can help you figure out if an image is genuine, modified or completely fake, such as:

When the photo was taken.

When the photo was modified.

What device took the photo.

For example, the EXIF data below tells you an image was modified because the DateTime and DateTimeOriginal are different, meaning the photo was at some point modified.

Software: the specific photo editing program that modified the photo.

DateTime: the time when the final version of the photo was made.

DateTimeOriginal / DateTimeDigitized: the time when the original non-modified photo was created.

Unfortunately, some images don't have useful EXIF data attached.
This is because there are a number of ways you can remove an image's EXIF data such as:

On PC, you can simply remove the EXIF data by right click image -> Properties -> Details -> Remove Properties and Personal Information.

Screenshotting the photo.

Uploading it to various sites.

Etc.

In this case, the best approach is to just assume that if a photo doesn't have EXIF data, then it was probably modified or altered in some way.

Reverse image search engines such as Google or TinEye can help you see if an image has previously appeared on the Internet.

By using reverse image search you can figure out the context of the image, and whether other people say it is real or not.

A good example of this is the famous AI generated image of Pope Francis in a puffy jacket:

The downside to reverse image search is that not all images are indexed in search engines.
For example, images on Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram, Discord etc., don't appear on search engines.

In this case, you'll have to rely on other methods, such as pixel peeping, EXIF data, image forensics software etc.

6. JPEGSnoop | Desktop | Free

JPEGSnoop is a free Windows program designed to perform image forensics, which makes it similar to Forensically and Foto Forensics.

Besides image forensics, JPEGSnoop can also be used to assess the quality of images, locate errors, determine what editing program was used to alter the photo, etc.

What makes JPEGSnoop more useful than either Forensically Beta and Foto Forensics is that JPEGSnoop divides images into four classes, where Class 1 means a photo was 100% modified, while Class 4 means a photo is "probably" original.

Overall, if you're a technical person and know how to read detailed photo information, then JPEGSnoop is probably the best free forensics tool.

7. Hone your fake photo detection skills

Even without sophisticated photo forensic tools, there are several things you can look at to determine if an image has been modified or not:

Be aware of human anatomy: Sometimes, a photo doesn't even need to be photoshopped. Instead, the person just needs to know how to use human anatomy and angles to dramatically change their appearance.

Inconsistent Lighting and Shadows: The direction, length, and color of the shadows in an image should be consistent with the light source(s). If they are not, it's possible that the image was manipulated.

1. Edges and Borders: Edges of objects in the image should appear smooth and natural. If they are overly sharp or blurry, it might be a sign that the image has been manipulated.

2. Texture and Noise: In an unedited image, the texture and "noise" (graininess) should be consistent throughout the image. If certain areas look different in texture or noise, they may have been added or altered.

3. Perspective: The perspective of objects in the image should be consistent. If an object appears to be at an odd angle or seems out of place, it could be a sign of manipulation.

4. Repeated Patterns: Many editing tools use a cloning technique to cover up manipulations. If there are repeated patterns in the image, it could be a sign of cloning.

1. Image Quality: If parts of the image have different resolutions or levels of clarity, it could indicate that those parts were added from another image.

2. Unnatural Colors or Lighting: If the colors or lighting in a part of the image seem unnatural or don't match the rest of the scene, it could be a sign that the image has been manipulated.

3. Too Perfect: If a photo looks too perfect, it might have been edited. For instance, in a group photo, it's unusual for everyone to have their eyes open and be smiling perfectly.

That being said, while these signs can suggest an image might have been manipulated, they are not definitive proof.

This is because highly skilled photo manipulators know how to avoid these issues, so their photos may not exhibit these signs at all.

However, these checks can still be helpful when you're analysing an image's authenticity.

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7 Tools to Detect Photoshopped & Fake Images (+ Tutorials) - Datasourse

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Manipulating photographs has been a feature of photography ever since it was first invented 200 years ago. Unfortunately, it is practically impossible to detect a fake or photoshopped image with 100% accuracy. The software editing tools and techniques currently available are simply too sophisticated and powerful, and prevent image forensics tools from achieving such a ...

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Intuit lists 22 free photo editor applications and softwares which have the capability of creating Photoshop style images.
These applications/softwares are behind the deceptive content.

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Want to edit your photos but don't know where to start? Check out this guide and review the best free photo editing software and mobile apps.

These days, everyone is their own photographer. That means that the ability to edit photos is more important than it's ever been before. Especially if you run your own business, it is crucial to know how to edit photos. While you could hire someone to do it for you, it can be more rewarding to learn how to become a pro at it yourself.

An important part of the process is choosing the best free photo editing software for your needs. There are many out there to choose from, but some are better than others. But when it comes to email marketing and social media content, the free photo editor software you use makes all the difference.

It pays to use a high quality desktop friendly photo editing program. Yet, you'll also want to explore the many free photo editing apps. This way whether you're in your office or out-and-about, you have an effective way to prepare your photos for publication.

Build your brand and grow your business with Mailchimp's social posting platform. Simply choose a channel, add your content, and post.

What is a photo editing software?

In its simplest form, photo editing software are computer programs that allow you to make changes to images. These changes involve enhancing an image, manipulating it, or both. It is not uncommon for free photo editor software to perform tasks that previously had to be completed manually.

Originally, photo editing software was designed to help you alter pictures taken on a digital camera only. But since then, software has been updated. Thanks to these updates you can even edit photos that were taken on a smartphone or tablet. This is also the reason for the creation of free photo editing apps.

10 free photo editing software options for desktop

There will always be debates about what the best free photo editor is. But here are 10 photo editing software programs for desktops that you can download for free.

1. Krita

You'll have advanced photo editing capabilities when you use Krita, made for Windows, Linux, and Apple desktops. During the editing process you can have the tools off to the side of your image. But you also have the option of clicking the Tab button, prompting your image to fill the screen. For many beginners this is an easier way to start editing photos. Some of the editing tools you'll have at your fingertips include filters, blending modes, drawing aids, and symmetry and masking tools.

2. inPixio Photo Editor

For a simple way to create image content blocks, inPixio Photo Editor is a popular choice. Its presets and frames make it ideal for beginners. Editing features it offers include changing a photo's brightness and cropping it. The types of photo files it supports include TIFF, JPG, and PNG. An added bonus of inPixio is that images edited can immediately be uploaded to Twitter.

3. Artweaver Free

One of the easiest photo editing programs to use is Artweaver Free. It has a lot more features than other programs of its type. This is the software to use if you are uploading photos from a digital camera or scanning them in to use on your computer. PSD and JPEG are among the photo formats it supports.

In addition to all the standard tools every best free photo editor has, Artweaver has some features you won't find just anywhere. Using this software, you can customize your color palette layouts, create layered photos, and even save edits you use often. And like Krita, Artweaver Free also lets you edit photos in full screen mode.

4. PhotoScape

If easy navigation is your priority, PhotoScape is the software for you. Some of the editing options that you can easily access include Create GIF, Viewer, Combine, and Editor. And when it comes to text and objects, you can add your own or use the ones that come in the editing program.

Your editing abilities when using this software include a brush that creates special effects. They also include spot and red-eye remover, along with a clone stamp tool. In addition, you can manipulate picture frames by adjusting their lines and margins. and even rounding them.

5. Paint.Net

Paint.Net gives you a lot of flexibility in using a photo editor. The first thing to note is that you can manipulate the program's interface. It offers a number of tools that include paint brush and pencil tools, text makers and clone stamps. You can also play with effects and layers to make your pictures more attractive to the eye.

The basic version of the software is compatible with DDS, BMP, TGA, and JPEGs. But you can also download free plug-ins. These additional plug-ins increase the number of tools you have access to. They also make the software compatible with other types of photo files.

6. GIMP

Among the most well known best free photo editing software programs is GIMP. Like Paint.Net, GIMP also has extensions you can download to access additional editing options and new file formats.Many of these extensions are created by GIMP users that know exactly which features their fellow users want. Without any plugins the software supports GIF, TIFF, PNG, PSD, and JPEGs.

Editing photos with GIMP is easy because you can work on the main canvas without brush panes and the toolbox getting in the way. This way you can still access all the editing tools with all the features you need easy to get to. Many users compare GIMP to Photoshop, as it has almost the same capabilities. Also, any add-ons made for Photoshop are also compatible with GIMP.

7. Adobe Photoshop Express

For the best of Photoshop without the expense, Adobe has a free version called Photoshop Express. Unlike a lot of other software programs this one lets you edit webcam photos. And with one click you can use features that include red eye remover, cropping, and the ability to correct images. You can also touch up photos with one click of the mouse.This lets you create fade and grain effects. It's also possible to click back and forth between the original photo and your edited work.

A bonus tool that Photoshop Express has but other software lacks is a tool that lets you change the intensity of any image. This makes it easy to enhance the vibrance and saturation of the colors in your photos.

8. PhotoDirector Essential

A more advanced way to edit professionally is to use PhotoDirector Essential. It's ideal for social media marketing because it sorts out metadata for you. The software even has facial recognition capabilities thanks to artificial intelligence. You can easily organize your photos into slideshows, complete with accompanying background music.

PhotoDirector Essential offers the most basic to the most advanced editing options. From layer filtering to photo animation, to converting 350 degree shots into panoramic shots, the software offers almost every editing option you could think of.

9. Pixlr X

Though less well known than the others, Pixlr X is also a free photo editor software many users have had success with. It's user friendly especially if you are new to editing photos. Most often used for quick editing jobs, the software is excellent for changing lighting and colors. Some of the basic tools it offers are stamps and brushes that make small touch ups easier.

10. Movavi Picverse

The main attraction of Movavi Picverse is that you can use it to clean up your photos of any elements you don't want. It helps you manipulate multiple photos so that you can take elements from one and put them in another. The software also has one-click edit capabilities that allow you to add captions, titles, and other forms of text. You can also change your photos' colors, make them more saturated, and increase or decrease the contrast. Movavi Picverse also makes it easy for you to organize photos automatically.

12 Free photo editing apps

Being able to edit apps away from your office is a convenience you won't want to overlook. So here are the top 12 free apps for editing photos.

1. Photolemur 3

An often overlooked yet valuable photo editing app is Photolemur 3. It uses artificial intelligence to manipulate any photo the way you want it. The advanced features of this software include the ability to edit faces in photos. You can also set the app to analyze each photo you upload to it. Not only can it correct overexposure, it can also bring back any photo elements that may be missing from the original shot.

2. Adobe Lightroom CC

For mobile users, Adobe Lightroom CC is everything a photo editing app should be. It's ideal if you run an online business selling products. The app's built-in camera makes it easy to control shutter speed and focus points. Compatible with RAW files, it lets you edit like a pro. Its capabilities include the ability to add watermarks to your photos and gives you complete control of your exposure settings.

3. Instasize

If you use social media, Instasize is one of the recommended photo editing apps. In fact, when you use it to upload photos to Instagram, they get resized automatically. You can use Instasize to change the background color of your photos. It also lets you create layered photos and make collages. The app even allows you to snap a picture for immediate editing.

4. Lens Distortions

Many professional photographers use the Lens Distortions app. It is loaded with features that let you add effects to your photos. This includes flash, light leak, and color filters. The app also has the capability to change a photo's blurriness or its shine.

If you engage in a lot of outdoor photography, Lens Distortions is one of the most helpful apps out there. Its overlays make it ideal for editing photos taken of snow, rain, fog, and bright sun.

5. Bonfire

For Android users, a popular photo editing app is Bonfire. With 110 filters to choose from, Bonfire makes it easy to customize any photo. One of the more advanced filters even takes a regular photo and makes it look like a painting done in watercolor. The app makes it easy to view the original photo and the edited photo right next to each other, so you can always double check your work before saving it.

6. Apple Photos

For iOS users, the Apple Photos app is excellent for editing. It's Live Photos feature lets you snap pictures and immediately fix the exposure levels . With an iPhone Pro, you can even change the white balance of a picture and remove shadows from it. You also have a wide range of choices for making color adjustments to your photos.

7. Snapseed

Though Snapseed is a photo editing app owned by Google, it can be used on both Androids and iPhones. This app makes it easy to edit photos with nothing more than a swipe of your finger. You can choose and apply any possible edit quickly and easily.

The edit menu in the app lets you use preset styles, including silhouette, a smooth finish, and even morning lighting. Standard tools the app offers include settings for making photos black and white. You can even add a grainy look to any photo, using this app. And like with any good photo editing app, you have the ability to add frames and numerous different styles of text.

It's also got some unique editing tools not every app has, including perspective, healing brush, HDR, and structure/sharpness. The one drawback of Snapseed is that it only supports JPGS and DNGs.

8. Inshot

Inshot is a photo editing app that is similar to Photoshop. And while the free app is somewhat limited on features, it gives you a lot of options for editing. One selling point of this app is that it uses artificial intelligence to give you editing capabilities you wouldn't have otherwise.

9. PicsArt

PicsArt is loaded with editing features that are easy to use. The app makes it easy to edit and view multiple copies of photos at once. The tools it comes with include crop, stretch, motion, clone, and dispersion. But PicsArt is also useful for editing portrait photos. The portrait friendly tools included in the app include auto fix, face fix, and smooth brush. It also has tools for fixing blemishes, skin tone, hair, red eye, teeth whitening, and eye color.

10. VSCO

VSCO has all the editing features you could possibly need. Its many features include tone, contrast, and exposure. You can even make adjustments to photos to make them look grainy, faded, or clearer. Though its skin tone fixer is limited, it still gets the job done. Users like this app because it makes it easy to apply the same edits repeatedly. You can save your edits and automatically apply them.

11. BeFunky

BeFunky comes with a lot of photo editing features as well. While it's great for standard editing jobs, it also excels at helping you touch-up photos. This is thanks to editing features like changing eye color, eliminating wrinkles, fixing blemishes, whitening teeth, and removing red-eye from your pictures. There is also a setting you can use to add makeup, including lipstick. One popular feature of this app is that it makes it easy to correct editing mistakes. With one tap you can restore a redo photo to its original form, or undo any other recent edits you've made.

12. PicLab

Many users find it fun to edit photos with PicLab. The app includes features like filters, cropping, and overlays. The overlays feature lets you add texture to photos, change the lighting, and add shapes and even various stickers and fonts.

Is Photoshop worth the money?

Only you can decide if using the best free photo editing software over Photoshop is worth it. There are arguments for and against using Photoshop. A lot of the decisions depend on exactly why and how much photo editing you do. It also depends on how much experience you have editing photos.

There is no need to use Photoshop just to create quality photos you can be proud of. These desktop softwares and mobile apps are just as good and often less intimidating to use. Unless your photo editing needs are numerous and you're doing it on a large scale, Photoshop may become too overwhelming to work with.

Basic editing can be done with almost any free program or app you can find. Casual users rarely need or want to rely on Photoshop to tweaktheir pictures. But they will flock to products like MailChimp's photo editor and content studio. These are both easy to use and you don't have to be a professional photographer to understand them.

For everyday needs when it comes to photo editing, having a program you are comfortable working with is important. Most free editing programs are easy to learn and use. Many of them are even designed with social media users in mind, something that was never a factor when Photoshop was launched. These programs make it fun and easy to transform your photos into something special.

Build your brand and grow your business with Mailchimp's social posting platform. Simply choose a channel, add your content, and post.

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22 Best Free Photo Editing Software and Apps | Mailchimp

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Want to edit your photos but don't know where to start? Check out this guide and review the best free photo editing software and mobile apps.

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Creative Bloq presents real world examples of deepfake technology along with providing a background on AI generated art programs such as DALL-E 2. CB shows presidential and celebrity examples that are AI generated.

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(Image credit: Ctrl Shift Face/Youtube)

The best deepfake examples continue to amaze us, whilst also raising concerns about whether we can be sure what's real. Over a few short years, technology like AI and deepfaking has advanced to the point where it's becoming really quite difficult to see the flaws in these creations. They used to all have that "uncanny valley" feel that made it obvious that what we were looking at isn't real, but we've seen increasingly convincing deepfake examples in the last year or so.

In this roundup, we've attempted to show a wide variation of deepfake examples - from the most realistic edits to ones that are purely for entertainment purposes. Deepfakes have been used for various purposes, mainly for entertainment and parody. But as the technology improves and becomes more accessible, we have also seen some misuse to try and spread misinformation by impersonating important public figures like politicians.

But what actually is a deepfake? Scroll down to the bottom for a briefing on how the technology works, but at the most basic level a deepfake is a video that uses impressive technology to replicate a subject's likeness to replace another's face - essentially shape-shifting one person into another The results can be impressive and very funny, but they can also raise concerns about privacy, manipulation and authenticity. For more on the wider phenomenon of AI-generated imagery, see our guide to how to use DALL-E 2 and how the best AI art generators compare. In the meantime here are the best deepfake examples we've seen so far.

The best deepfake examples

01. This is not Morgan Freeman

One of the most scarily convincing deepfakes is this Morgan Freeman deepfake. The video was first shared by Dutch deepfake YouTube Channel Diep Nep last year, crediting the concept to Bob de Jong and the (very good) voice acting to Boet Schouwink.

The video's still hugely impressive, and frightening, a year on, as we saw when it resurfaced on Twitter last month. "How can this tech NOT be deployed in the 2024 election?" one user commented. "Soon we'll see that even this is essentially child's play when it comes to the actual, ever-present (yet invisible) capabilities of identity manipulation and whole-cloth digital identity creation...the implications of which are far-reaching & bone chilling," someone added.

02. The Shining starring Jim Carrey

Bizarre film/actor crossovers are popular amongst deepfake creators; you can find plenty of them on YouTube (including the above Jerry Seinfield and Pulp Fiction mashup). This terrifyingly good edit sees Jim Carrey take on the role of Jack Torrence in a series of videos showing the most important moments from the 1980 film The Shining. It's scarily convincing, and makes us want to see Jim Carrey staring in a horror film. His exaggerated expressions would be perfect.

If you want to see a better comparison of the Deepfake edit versus the original, the creators Ctrl Shift Face have uploaded a before and after of the Jack to Jimmy transformation.

03. Spider-man: No Way Home but it's Tobey Maguire

Everyone has a favourite Spider-man actor, and if your favourite is Tobey Maguire you'll love this particular edit. Popular deepfake creator Shamook took the Spider-man: No Way Home trailer and replaced Tom Holland's face with the original spidey, Tobey Maguire. It's a subtle effect, but executed brilliantly so you can barely tell there's been a change at all.

This kind of edit makes us wonder what the future of film could look like using this technology. Imagine being able to choose your preferred actor to play the lead in the film you're watching. Wild.

04. Jerry Seinfeld in Pulp Fiction

This hilarious and perfectly executed creation sees DesiFakes puts Jerry Seinfeld into one of the most famous scenes from Pulp Fiction, and it works fantastically. The audio editing is as important as the visuals here, with perfect timing right down to the inappropriate canned laughter and the jingle and credit roll. The facial expressions could come straight out of a Seinfeld episode. This is the kind of things deepfakes were made for.

05. The deepfake Tom Cruise on TikTok

@deeptomcruise
Keep your hands clean.
♬ original sound - Tom

Deepfakes have come so far in recent years that there's now a TikTok account dedicated entirely to Tom Cruise deepfakes. There's still a hint of the uncanny valley about @deeptomcruise's videos, but his mastery of the actor's voice and mannerisms along with the use of rapidly advancing technology has resulted in some of the most convincing deepfake examples yet.

Videos show Cruise doing everything from golfing to demonstrating a magic trick, even in everyday situations like washing his hands. The description of the TikTok account simply reads, "Parody. Also younger."

06. The Mandalorian Luke Skywalker deepfake

Star Wars fandom exploded at the sight of Luke Skywalker in the season two finale of The Mandalorian. Once the space dust eventually settled though, viewers were quick to point out what they saw as flaws in the digital recreation of a younger Mark Hamill. Once again, YouTuber Shamook had a go at deepfaking a Return of the Jedi-era Luke Skywalker with very impressive results.

In fact, it was later confirmed that Shamook had been hired by none other than Industrial Light and Magic, the legendary visual effects company that help bring the Star Wars galaxy to life. Deepfake technology is now being used to shape the galaxy far far away.

07. The deepfake Keanu Reeves on TikTok

@unreal_keanu♬ original sound - Unreal Keanu Reeves

Cruise isn't the only phoney celeb with his own TikTok following. He's since been joined on the platform by a deepfake Keanu Reeves and many more. Unreal_Keanu has picked up an incredible 7.4 million followers, who seem to love the references to his movie rolls, his dancing (it is TikTok) and jokes about living with a partner.

As with Cruise above, this particular deepfake celeb is being used for laughs and isn't being passed off as real. But despite the humour, it shows the risks deepfakes pose for celebs. On the one hand, the tech could allow celebrities to sell their image to brands without having to go to the trouble of actually filming a spot or going to a photoshoot. But on the other side, there have already been reports of unscrupulous brands using deepfakes to push their products without the celebs' permission.

08. Korean newsreader Kim Joo-Ha

Many deepfake examples are fun parodies or experiments designed to test the limits of deep learning technology. However, perhaps the biggest indication that deepfakes could become part of everyday mainstream media came late last year when the Korean television channel MBN presented viewers with a deepfake of its own news anchor Kim Joo-Ha.

The channel warned viewers in advance that the newsreader would be faked, and Kim Joo-Ha still has her job. However, MBN said it planned to continue using the deepfake for some breaking news reports, and the company behind the deepfake, South Korea's DeepBrain AI (formerly known as Moneybrain), has said that it's looking for media buyers in China and the US, leading some to fear that newsreaders may become obsolete.

09. Wonder Woman

Remakes and reboots continue to be a massive part of the modern film landscape. Whenever new actors are cast in classic roles, comparisons are inevitably made between the different portrayals. Deepfake technology has allowed people to take those comparisons one step further, by putting one actor in the place of another for a sequence, highlighting similarities and differences that are incredibly interesting to observe.

This example, from DeepFaker, places actress Lynda Carter, from the classic '70s Wonder Woman TV show, into the reimagined world and costume of Gal Gadot's big-screen Wonder Woman - with breathtaking results.

10. The deepfake Snoop Dogg Doggy Dog tarot readings

Phoneline fortune telling used to dominate late night TV in many places, with viewers phoning in to have their future told to them by highly dubious psychics. It was a shady business, so it seems rather app for deepfake treatment, and who better to star in it than West Coast gangsta rapper Snoop Dogg. This hilarious deepfake is the work of Brian Monarch.

11. Deepfake Roundtable

The entertainment landscape is undergoing a seismic shift right now, as streaming services like Netflix battle with the big screen for attention. With this in mind, Collider put together this hilarious deepfake with the super recognisable faces of Tom Cruise, Robert Downey, Jr, George Lucas, Ewan McGregor and Jeff Goldblum discussing streaming and the future of cinema. This is a favourite of ours not only because it's incredibly convincing but also because it's a highly amusing video. As one commenter puts it, this is 'scary good'.

12. Donald Trump joins Breaking Bad

This video takes a scene from the mega-popular Breaking Bad series and introduces Donald Trump as crooked lawyer Saul Goodman. In the scene, Goodman explains the basics of money laundering to Jesse Pinkman, played in the show by Aaron Paul. To add a touch of realism, Donald Trump's deepfaked son-in-law Jared Kushner takes over from Paul, making the parody an almost personal heart-to-heart.

YouTube creators Ctrl Shift Face, the team behind the parody, used DeepFaceLab to create Trump and Kushner's faces frame by frame. The voices, which complete the scene, were provided by Stable Voices, a custom AI model that is trained on real speech samples.

Donald Trump must be one of the people who has most been subject to deepfakes, often with very amusing results. In fact, the creators of South Park originally planned to make an entire movie out of their Sassy Justice (see below). Deep Fake: The Movie appears to be currently on hold, but this is a taster of what it might look like.

13. Obama's public service announcement

Many of the most convincing deepfake examples have been created with the help of impersonators that mimick the source's voice and gestures, just like this video produced by BuzzFeed and comedian Jordan Peele using After Effects CC and FakeApp. Peele's mouth was pasted over Obama's, replacing the former president's jawline with one that followed Peele's mouth movements. FakeApp was then used to refine the footage through more than 50 hours of automatic processing.

Politicians and celebrities are often the subjects of deepfakes. Less than a year before the above video, University of Washington computer scientists used neural network AI to model the shape of Obama's mouth and make it lip sync to audio input.

High-profile figures make for such perfect sources in deepfaking because their public profiles provide plenty of source material for an AI to learn from, but with the number of selfies the average person takes in a lifetime and rapid technological advances, perhaps soon anyone could be used as a source.

14. Zuckerberg speaks frankly

In response to Facebook's refusal to remove a doctored video of Nancy Pelosi, artist Bill Posters posted this deepfake on Facebook-owned Instagram, showing Mark Zuckerberg boasting of how the platform "owns" its users. Would Facebook react differently when its own founder was being manipulated?

The film originally formed part of Posters' and Daniel Howe's Spectre piece, which was commissioned for Sheffield Doc Fest to draw attention to how people can be manipulated by social media. It was made using Israeli startup Canny AI's VDR (video dialogue replacement) software, which it's promoted with a deepfake singalong starring various world leaders.

Instagram didn't take the Zuckerberg video down, but said it would, "treat this content the same way we treat all misinformation on Instagram. If third-party fact checkers mark it as false, we will filter it." The posters had flagged it using the hashtag #deepfake. While the video is reasonably convincing on mute, the voice gives it away, showing that a good actor is still needed to make plausible deepfake examples (although AI voice synthesis has been advancing by leaps and bounds, so perhaps not for long).

15. Donald Trump lectures Belgium

Trump again! This one's an old one, but it's notable for having been the first example of a political party using a deepfake, Belgium's Socialistische Partij Anders (sp.a) posted this video on Facebook back in May 2018 showing Trump taunting Belgium for remaining in the Paris climate agreement. With Trump's hair looking even stranger than usual and the crude movement of the mouth, it's very clearly fake, and the voiceover says as much, though the final line "We all know that climate change is fake, just like this video," isn't subtitled in Flemish, but it was still enough to provoke one user to comment "Trumpy needs to look at his own country with its crazy child killers," and for sp.a to have to clarify it was fake.

A more convincing Trump (below) was later created by YouTuber Derpfakes, who trained DeepFaceLab to map a composite of Trump's face over Alec Baldwin's Saturday Night Live impersonation of him, showing how far the technology has come in a year. The video has been blocked in the US and Canada.

16. Dove's Toxic Advice deepfake

Here's an example of deepfakes being used by a major brand, and for a marketing campaign with a positive mission. Dove used deepfake technology to put very unlikely advice into the mouths of the mothers of teenage girls, the aim being to raise awareness of the negative impact of a lot of the dangerous 'beauty' advice shared by influencers on social media apps. In the campaign video, the participants sit mouths wide, clearly horrified by the distorted advice being given by their mums. Entitled Toxic Influence, the ad was created by Ogilvy.

17. Bill Hader morphs into Pacino and Schwarzenegger

If a great impersonation is the basis of a convincing deepfake then this video of actor and comedian Bill Hader morphing into Hollywood legends Al Pacino and Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn't fail. Although the team at Ctrl Shift Face aren't trying to trick anyone with this video, they do demonstrate how crucial it is to have an actor that can capture the mannerisms of your source. The subtle morphing of Hader's face into that of Pacino and then Schwarzenegger is slightly terrifying and completely hilarious.

18. Salvador Dalí comes back to life

Agency GS&P pulled off the kind of headline-grabbing stunt that the publicity-loving Dalí would have appreciated when they resurrected the Catalan artist as a charismatic host at the Dalí Museum in Florida. Billed as "art meets artificial intelligence", Dalí Lives was created by pulling more than 6,000 frames from old video interviews and processing them through 1,000 hours of machine learning before overlaying the source onto an actor's face. The text was comprised of quotes from interviews and letters with new commentary designed to help visitors empathise with the artist and relate to his work.

The novelty of this deepfake example is its interactivity. A total 45 minutes of footage split over 125 videos allows for more than 190,000 possible combinations depending on visitor responses and even includes comments on the weather. It finishes with Dalí turning around and snapping a selfie with his audience. Dalí claimed it was unlikely he would ever die, and maybe he was right, because he was brought to life a second time recently by Samsung's AI lab in Moscow, this time by training AI on landmark facial features from just a handful of images rather than the usual thousands.

19. The Volodymyr Zelensky deepfake

A deepfake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calling on his soldiers to lay down their weapons was reportedly uploaded to a hacked Ukrainian news website today, per @Shayan86 pic.twitter.com/tXLrYECGY4 March 16, 2022

Fortunately, most known deepfake examples online are clearly flagged as fake and are not intended to fool anyone. They're usually being played for laughs, for example, putting Nicolas Cage in every film ever produced, or at worst for sordid fantasy (deepfake celebrity porn through which the tech first took root has been banned). But there have been cases of people using deepfakes for nefarious ends and trying to pass them off as real.

This frightening example was broadcast on a hacked Ukrainian TV station barely a month into the Russian invasion of the country. It shows the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky ordering the country's troops to surrender to Russia. Although the quality is poor and it doesn't look very convincing, it's an example of why people are so concerned that deepfakes could be used to spread fake news.

20. Yang Mi travels in time

Back in 2019, a video pasting the face of Yang Mi, one of China's best-known contemporary actors into the 1983 Hong Kong television drama The Legend Of The Condor Heroes went viral, racking up a reported 240 million views before it was removed by Chinese authorities.

Its creator, a fan of Yang Mi, issued an apology on microblogging site Weibo and said he'd made the video as a warning to raise awareness of the technology. We can actually see lots of possible uses of deepfakes for the film and television industry. It's also possible to see how the industry could eventually embrace the technology and turn it to profit by allowing viewers to play director on home releases, manipulating dialogue, incorporating alternative scenes or even inserting themselves as characters. We won't be surprised if we see a lot of video games with celebrity appearances too.
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20 of the best deepfake examples that terrified and amused the internet

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These examples of the best deepfake examples prove how far technology has come, for better or for worse.

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Technology Review talks about Twitter being infiltrated by deepfake accounts posing to be Amazon workers. Librarians can use this to guide community members on how to determine social media authenticity, such as looking at the blue check marks, username, and date of profile creation.

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Skip to Content

The accounts are likely just parodies, not part of a sinister corporate strategy, but they illustrate the kind of thing that could happen someday.

The news: Ahead of a landmark vote that could lead to the formation of the first-ever labor union at a US-based Amazon warehouse, new Twitter accounts purporting to be Amazon employees started appearing. The profiles used deepfake photos as profile pictures and were tweeting some pretty laughable, over-the-top defenses of Amazon's working practices. They didn't seem real, but they still led to confusion among the public. Was Amazon really behind them? Was this some terrible new anti-union social media strategy? The answer is almost certainly not-but the use of deepfakes in this context points to a more concerning trend overall.

The backstory: There's a reason these new deepfake profiles seemed familiar. In 2018, Amazon began a very real program to convince the public that it was treating its warehouse workers just fine. It set up computer stations in those warehouses and created Twitter accounts for a small group of employees, known as "Amazon FC Ambassadors," who could tweet during paid hours about how much they loved their job. The plan backfired, and led to the creation of numerous parody ambassador accounts on Twitter. Amazon scaled back the program shortly after, and many of the original real accounts were suspended or shut down, says Aric Toler, the head of training and research efforts for the investigative journalism site Bellingcat.

The latest: On Monday, the new batch of ambassador accounts cropped up-or at least, so it seemed. But when people started investigating, many pointed out that some had profile pictures with the telltale signs of deepfake faces, like warped earrings and blurry backgrounds. That's when things got confusing.

People quickly latched onto the idea that Amazon itself was behind the new deepfake accounts as part of an anti-union social media campaign. The company later told New York Times reporter Karen Weise that it was not. Toler, who tracked the original accounts, believes Amazon is telling the truth. The original ambassador accounts were all registered under Amazon email addresses and posted using Sprinklr. The new deepfake accounts, which have since been suspended, were registered using Gmail and posted via the Twitter web app. Plus, the content of the tweets was clearly intended to be humorous. These accounts were likely just more parodies created to mock Amazon.

Does this matter? In this particular case, probably not. "It's of course pretty harmless," says Toler. "It's Amazon. They're fine." But it reveals a more concerning problem: that deepfake accounts can be deployed in a coordinated way on social media or elsewhere for far more sinister purposes. The most malicious version of this would be state actors, warns Toler.

In fact there have already been several high-profile instances in which deepfake photos have been used in damaging disinformation campaigns. In December 2019, Facebook identified and took down a network of over 900 pages, groups, and accounts, including some with deepfaked profile pictures, associated with the far-right outlet the Epoch Times, which is known to engage in misinformation tactics. In October 2020, a fake "intelligence" document distributed among President Trump's circles, which became the basis for numerous conspiracy theories surrounding Hunter Biden, was also authored by a fake security analyst with a deepfaked profile image.

Toler says deepfake faces have become a trend in his line of work as an open-source investigator into suspicious online activity, especially since the launch of ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com, a website that serves up a new AI-generated face with every refresh. "There's always a mental checklist that you go through whenever you find anything," he says. "The first question is 'Is this person real or not?' Which was a question we didn't really have five years ago."

How big a threat is this? At the moment, Toler says, the use of deepfake faces hasn't had a big impact on his work. It's still relatively easy for him to identify when a profile image is a deepfake, just as it is when the photo is a stock image. The most difficult scenario is when the image is of a real person pulled from a private social media account that isn't indexed on image search engines.

A growing awareness of deepfakes has also primed people to scrutinize the media they see more carefully, says Toler, as evidenced by how quickly people caught on to the fakery of the Amazon accounts.

But Sam Gregory, the program director of human rights nonprofit Witness, says this shouldn't lull us into a false sense of security. Deepfakes are constantly getting better, he says: "I think people have a little bit too much confidence that it's always going to be possible to detect them."

A hyper-awareness of deepfakes could also lead people to stop believing in real media, which could have equally dire consequences, such as undermining the documentation of human rights abuses.

What should we do? Gregory encourages social media users to avoid fixating on whether an image is a deepfake or not. Oftentimes, that's just "a tiny part of the puzzle," he says. "The giveaway is not that you've somehow interrogated the image. It's that you look at the account and it was created a week ago, or it's a journalist who claims to be a journalist, but they've never written anything else that you could find on a Google search."

These investigative tactics are much more robust to advances in deepfake technology. The advice rings true for the Amazon case as well. It was through checking the accounts' emails and tweet details that Toler ultimately determined they were fake-not by scrutinizing the profile images.

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Deepfake "Amazon workers" are sowing confusion on Twitter. That's not the problem.

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Skip to Content The accounts are likely just parodies, not part of a sinister corporate strategy, but they illustrate the kind of thing that could happen someday. The news: Ahead of a landmark vote that could lead to the formation of the first-ever labor union at a US-based Amazon warehouse, new Twitter accounts purporting to be Amazon employees started appearing.