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Deepfake Detection: The Technology, Threats, and Tools to Combat Them
The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the digital era has led to remarkable advancements, but it has also given rise to some concerning technological developments. Among this, Deepfake has emerged as a captivating and controversial concept, drawing considerable attention in recent times.
Deepfake represents a form of synthetic media in which an existing image, video, or audio is replaced or manipulated using advanced artificial intelligence techniques. The prime objective is to create fabrications or alterations that are virtually indistinguishable from authentic content. Hence, deepfake, the term describes both the technology and the resulting bogus content. It is a portmanteau of deep learning and fake.
To create realistic deepfake videos or images, an attacker needs access to pictures and videos of the person from as many angles as possible. Similarly, creating fake audio requires large amounts of audio samples. This makes celebrities and political leaders a good target because the data needed is easily accessible for AI to analyze and generate a realistic looking deepfake. However, the quality of the input data will usually drive the quality of the output.
What are the risks of deepfakes heading into 2025?
- The global deepfake AI market size was valued at USD 805.1 million in 2023 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 26.3% between 2024 and 2032.
- Countries with the most deepfakes detected in Q1 2024 are China, Spain, Germany, Ukraine, the US, Vietnam, and the UK.
One common example is a video that appears to show soccer star David Beckham fluently speaking nine different languages while he actually speaks only one. Another fake video shows Richard Nixon giving the speech that the Apollo 11 mission failed and the astronauts didn’t survive.
In 2015, Hollywood utilized deepfake technology in the movie Fast and Furious 7 upon the demise of lead actor Paul Walker. In essence, AI was used to bring Paul Walker back to life for the audience’s entertainment.
A more evil example comes courtesy of a UK-based energy firm. In 2019, the chief executive officer of a British energy provider reportedly transferred €220,000 ($238,000) to a scammer who had digitally mimicked the head of his parent company and asked for a wire to a supposed supplier on a phone call. It wasn’t until the fraudster called multiple times requesting more money and the CEO noticed the call was coming from an Austrian number that he began to doubt it.
Then, there’s now an entire TikTok account dedicated to deepfakes of the popular actor ‘Tom Cruise’. If you watch them a few times and look carefully, you can tell they are not actual videos of the actor, but the effort put into mimicking Cruise’s voice and mannerisms makes them look convincing at first glance.
In another scenario, using readily available apps, comedian Jordan Peele pasted his own mouth and jawline over that of former president Barack Obama and then mimicked Obama’s voice and gestures to create a convincing deepfake ‘public service announcement’.
One worrisome deepfake example is when fraudsters took a real video of Speaker of the House Nancy Peloci, slowed it down by 25 percent, and then altered the pitch of her voice to make it seem like she was slurring her words.
Detecting deepfake technology content requires more than a keen eye
The advancement of AI-generated deepfake is a growing concern for the international community, governments and the public, with significant implications for national security and cybersecurity. It also raises ethical questions related to surveillance and transparency.
Given the explosion of new deepfakes on our social feeds and their potential to cause real harm, it’s important to know how to spot them.
Here are a few tips on how to detect a deepfake content manually:
- Eye movement in videos: Eye movements that do not look natural or lack of eye movement, such as an absence of blinking, are red flags. It’s challenging to replicate a real person’s eye movements, that’s because a person’s eye usually follows the individual they are communicating or talking to. It’s also difficult to replicate the act of blinking in a way that looks natural.
- Skin texture: Does the skin appear too smooth or too wrinkly? Does aging, dry skin complement the eyes and hair? Deepfakes are often incongruent on some dimensions.
- Teeth that look unreal: Algorithms may not be able to generate individual teeth, so an absence of outlines of individual teeth could be a clue.
- Hair that doesn’t look real: You won’t see frizzy or flyaway hair because fake images won’t be able to generate these natural characteristics.
- A lack of emotion: You can also spot if someone’s face doesn’t seem to exhibit the emotion that should go along with what they are supposedly saying or doing.
- Awkward-looking body or posture: Another sign is if a person’s body shape doesn’t look natural or there is an awkwardness or inconsistency in the head and body positioning. This may be the easiest attribute to spot because deepfake technology usually focuses on facial features rather than the whole body.
- Blur or misalignment: If the edges of images are blurry or visuals are misaligned — for example, where someone’s face and neck is not meeting their body naturally— you would know something is amiss.
- Inconsistent audio and noise: Poor lip-syncing, robotic sound and voices, strange pronunciation of words, weird background noise, or even the absence of audio should indicate, it is a fake content.
- Hashtag discrepancies: There is a cryptographic algorithm that helps video creators show that their videos are authentic. The algorithm is used to insert hashtags at certain places throughout a video. If the hashtags change, then you should suspect the video has been manipulated.
- News sources: Check if the content is uploaded on authorized website or channel. If you search for information on the video and no trustworthy sources are talking about it, it could mean the video is a deepfake.
Third-party tools to detect deepfake content
There are several deepfake detection software to protect against the harmful effects of fake images, videos, and audio. Some of the best AI deepfake detection tools for 2025 & beyond are:
The technology provides comprehensive protection across all digital formats, from video to audio. Whether it is safeguarding your brand, preventing identity fraud, or securing communications, DuckDuckGoose offers full-spectrum defense you can count on.
Specialized in monitoring online platforms, Sensity scans vast amounts of content in real-time, flagging suspicious media for further analysis. Sensity’s tools excel in combating the spread of harmful deepfake content across social media and digital channels.
Deepware is another detection tool that helps you detect and prevent deepfakes in visual and audio communication using its advanced AI/ML algorithms. It analyzes and detects deepfake content across images, videos, and audio recordings and assesses the authenticity of media content. You can input a link containing the digital media, and the Deepwater AI model will complete a comprehensive scan to detect any signs of manipulation and determine its authenticity.
Resemble AI is designed to distinguish between authentic and AI-generated audio and is the best tool for audio verification. It specializes in analyzing and detecting synthetic audio and providing real-time analysis.
All these tools are widely popular. By understanding your business needs and requirements, you can choose the best AI deepfake detector tool for your organization.
There are many ways deepfakes can be used, ranging from harmless satire, art, or entertainment to disinformation, adult content, political scandals, fake news, and even modern warfare. Creating deepfakes is not itself an illegal act. However, there can be legal repercussions if they violate the subject’s personal rights or are used for malicious or criminal gains.
So far, the U.S. government’s approach to regulating AI has been a patchwork of guidelines, best practices, and industry-specific rules, with no federal laws on the books directly limiting its use or addressing its risks. However, with Trump stepping in, his penchant for deregulation, and keeping the ‘America First’ approach, could fundamentally reshape how AI is developed, deployed, and governed in the United States. In short, the AI industry is poised to see some drastic changes.
In brief
In a world rife with misinformation and mistrust, AI provides ever-more sophisticated means of convincing people of the veracity of false information that has the potential to lead to greater political tension, violence or even war.
As deepfake technology becomes increasingly prevalent, understanding how deepfake works and what is deepfake is imperative for individuals and organizations
