Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is 'evaluating' how it should handle deepfake videos created with AI

Facebook is evaluating how it should handle “deepfake” videos created with artificial intelligence (AI) and high-tech software tools to produce false but realistic clips, Facebook's chairman and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday. Zuckerberg perhaps wants people to treat deepfake videos from false news. In an interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, he said it might make sense to treat such videos differently from other misinformation such as false news.

Facebook has always maintained that it should not choose what is and is not true and outsourced fact-checking to third-parties. But according to Zuckerberg, it is worth examining whether deepfake videos form a “completely different category” from regular false statements. Zuckerberg believes developing a policy on deepfake videos is “really important” as artificial intelligence (AI) technology grows more complex.

Similar to other social media companies, Facebook does not have a specific policy against deepfake videos, whose potential threat has emerged only in the last couple of years. Facebook has said in the past that it makes sense to look at them under the broader umbrella of false or misleading information. However, Zuckerberg is perhaps indicating that this view might be changing, leaving open the possibility that Facebook might put a ban on deepfake videos altogether.

Policing deepfake videos could get complicated, though. Satire, art and political dissent could be swept up in an overly broad ban. More details are awaited.

Recently in an interview, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri talked about Instagram's policy for "deepfakes" and its refusal to take down the deepfake video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

"We are not going to make a one-off decision to take a piece of video down just because it's of Mark and Mark happens to run this place. That would be really inappropriate and irresponsible," Mosseri said.

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Earlier, a deepfake video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was uploaded on Instagram. In the video, Facebook CEO was portrayed as saying things that seemed to defame Facebook and Zuckerberg himself. However, Instagram refused to delete the video in question.

(With AP inputs)