BKC researchers argue the dangers of deepfakes are overblown, but they will still require journalists to give thought to how they handle unconfirmed information.
“By making it more expensive for newsrooms to do good forensics work at the breakneck pace of the news cycle — and opening the door for those less principled — deepfakes might slip through a loophole in journalistic ethics,” write John Bowers, Tim Hwang, and Jonathan Zittrain. “Even if their persuasive power doesn’t far outstrip that of conventional formats for disinformation, the difficulty of quickly and conclusively debunking deepfakes (or verifying legitimate content) may bog down the traditional media institutions that many of us still appropriately rely on as counterweights against viralized disinformation.”