Mitigating the harms of manipulated media: Confronting deepfakes and digital deception

The ability to distort the visual record is not new. Airbrushed images attempted to alter the historical archives in the early 1900s. Today, digitally manipulated cheapfakes and deepfakes supercharge the spread of lies and conspiracies. While not fundamentally new, today’s enhanced ability to easily create, distribute, and amplify manipulated media has heightened the risks. Reasonable and proportional interventions can and should be adopted that would allow for the creative uses of these powerful new technologies while mitigating the risk they pose to individuals, societies, and democracies.