Actors behind deepfakes, the associated threats, and the proposed solutions were analyzed by Taufiq Ahmad, Rauf Arif, Muhammad Ittefaq, and Seyeon Park, all from University of Maryland, using 308 news articles by 19 newspapers in 19 countries.
The spread of false information from ancient Egyptian wars to modern times has been a recurring problem. With the dawn of ICT technology and even closer to the current day, artificial intelligence, this problem has grown in an unprecedented manner. Countries, AI developers, and news organizations are all struggling to regulate it. There have been studies about news coverage of the recent war between Russia and Ukraine. Many of these reveal that Russia is engaged in identity-based narratives.
A critical gap remains: how deepfakes have been used in the coverage of the conflict over the years. With the growth of AI this is significant, and the authors hope to contribute to the discussion on the role of AI in disinformation in armed conflicts. To this end, the authors used thematic analysis (TA).
Chesney and Citron (2019) tell that deepfakes are “highly realistic and difficult to detect digital manipulations of audio or video”, the word being derived from “deep learning” and “fakes”. They have emerged as a new form of visual disinformation. Deepfakes have been widely used in recent conflicts like Gaza and Ukraine.
This study asked the following questions:
RQ1. How did global media frame the actors responsible for deepfakes during the Ukraine War?
RQ2. How did global media frame the threats of the deepfakes during the Ukraine War?
RQ3. What solutions did global media suggest for combating deepfakes during the Ukraine War?
News articles about deepfakes and Ukraine were collected from Nexis Uni, focusing on the escalated phase of the war beginning in 2022, not the simmering conflict following the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The newspapers were selected for language, broad circulation, and substantial readership in their countries and globally, and they represented diverse regions.
The newspapers selected were: The New York Times, The Guardian, Times of India, The Straits Times, The Irish Times, The Toronto Star, The Australian, Die Welt am Sonntag (English), The Jerusalem Post, Dawn, Business Day, Business Mirror, The Daily Star, The Korea Herald, The Bangkok Post, Gulf Times, The Moscow Times, The Press, and China Daily. The authors note a limitation: unavailability of several newspapers in the English language.
The major themes in the newspapers were producers, distributors, supporters, and propaganda & ideological agents. The category of producers had sub-themes of “state and political actors”, “technology and media developers”, and “malicious and criminal actors”. The distributors had “major digital platforms” and “automated and covert channels”. The supporters had only “political and policy networks”, and the last had no sub-themes. They all had associated phrases and the authors provided examples.
The threat themes were political, ethical and legal, social, security and military, economic, and future, which were all analyzed in detail. The solution themes were technical, policy/regulation, organizational/institutional, and educational/public awareness. Thus, the authors showed that there were measures against them.
Global news media frame deepfakes as a serious, multidimensional threat, and the political threats were the most dominant theme. The Ukraine war served as an interesting case, as the psychological propaganda aimed at eroding morale was ubiquitous. The part about solutions made the article also relevant for practical guidance.
The article “Artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and wars: How global news media frame actors, threats, and solutions in 19 countries” by Taufiq Ahmad, Rauf Arif, Muhammad Ittefaq, and Seyeon Park is in Media, War & Conflict. (Free abstract).
Picture: Untitled by Tom Kotov.
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