Twitter Plans Policy for Deep Fakes Ahead of 2020 Elections
Twitter will create a new policy meant to combat manipulated media, including deep fake videos, ahead of the 2020 U.S. election.
(Bloomberg) -- Twitter Inc. will create a new policy meant to combat manipulated media, including deep fake videos, ahead of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
The company doesn’t currently have a policy for how to handle deep fakes, altered videos that distort a subject’s appearance or speech while still looking authentic. Twitter plans to create one, but will first ask the public for feedback, a spokesman said on Monday.
Deep fakes and other misinformation have already been part of the 2020 election cycle. Earlier this year, a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that made the congresswoman look like she was slurring her words made the rounds on Facebook. The social-media giant refused to remove it, prompting rebukes from Pelosi and an eventual admission from Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg that Facebook should have flagged it as false more quickly.
Facebook is also under pressure from Democratic presidential candidates for failing to fact-check political advertising after President Donald Trump shared an ad claiming known falsehoods about rival Joe Biden.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kurt Wagner in San Francisco at kwagner71@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Andrew Pollack
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