COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) \u2014 In 2021, Danish video game live-streamer Marie Watson received an image of herself from an unknown Instagram account.<\/p>\n
She instantly recognized the holiday snap from her Instagram account, but something was different: Her clothing had been digitally removed to make her appear naked. It was a deepfake<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt overwhelmed me so much,\u201d Watson recalled. \u201cI just started bursting out in tears, because suddenly, I was there naked.\u201d<\/p>\n In the four years since her experience, deepfakes \u2014 highly realistic artificial intelligence-generated<\/a> images, videos or audio of real people or events \u2014 have become not only easier to make worldwide but also look or sound exponentially more realistic. That\u2019s thanks to technological advances and the proliferation of generative AI tools, including video generation tools from OpenAI<\/a> and Google.<\/p>\n These tools give millions of users the ability to easily spit out content, including for nefarious purposes that range from depicting celebrities Taylor Swift<\/a> and Katy Perry to disrupting elections and humiliating teens and women.<\/p>\n Copyright law<\/p>\n In response, Denmark is seeking to protect ordinary Danes, as well as performers and artists who might have their appearance or voice imitated and shared without their permission. A bill that\u2019s expected to pass early next year<\/a> would change copyright law by imposing a ban on the sharing of deepfakes to protect citizens\u2019 personal characteristics \u2014 such as their appearance or voice \u2014 from being imitated and shared online without their consent.<\/p>\n If enacted, Danish citizens would get the copyright over their own likeness. In theory, they then would be able to demand that online platforms take down content shared without their permission. The law would still allow for parodies and satire, though it\u2019s unclear how that will be determined.<\/p>\n Experts and officials say the Danish legislation would be among the most extensive steps yet taken by a government to combat misinformation through deepfakes. <\/p>\n Henry Ajder, founder of consulting firm Latent Space Advisory and a leading expert in generative AI, said that he applauds the Danish government for recognizing that the law needs to change.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause right now, when people say \u2018what can I do to protect myself from being deepfaked?\u2019 the answer I have to give most of the time is: \u2018There isn\u2019t a huge amount you can do,\u2019\u201d he said, \u201dwithout me basically saying, \u2018scrub yourself from the internet entirely.\u2019 Which isn\u2019t really possible.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cWe can\u2019t just pretend that this is business as usual for how we think about those key parts of our identity and our dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n Deepfakes and misinformation<\/p>\n U.S. President Donald Trump signed bipartisan legislation in May that makes it illegal<\/a> to knowingly publish or threaten to publish intimate images without a person\u2019s consent, including deepfakes. Last year, South Korea rolled out measures<\/a> to curb deepfake porn, including harsher punishment and stepped up regulations for social media platforms.<\/p>\n Danish Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt said that the bill has broad support from lawmakers in Copenhagen, because such digital manipulations can stir doubts about reality and spread misinformation.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re able to deepfake a politician without her or him being able to have that product taken down, that will undermine our democracy,\u201d he told reporters during an AI and copyright conference in September.<\/p>\n The right balance<\/p>\n The law would apply only in Denmark, and is unlikely to involve fines or imprisonment for social media users. But big tech platforms that fail to remove deepfakes could face severe fines, Engel-Schmidt said.<\/p>\n Ajder said Google-owned YouTube, for example, has a \u201cvery, very good system for getting the balance between copyright protection and freedom of creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n The platform\u2019s efforts suggest that it recognizes \u201cthe scale of the challenge that is already here and how much deeper it\u2019s going to become,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Twitch, TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n Engel-Schmidt said that Denmark, the current holder of the European Union\u2019s rotating presidency, had received interest in its proposed legislation from several other EU members, including France and Ireland.<\/p>\n Intellectual property lawyer Jakob Plesner Mathiasen said that the legislation shows the widespread need to combat the online danger that\u2019s now infused into every aspect of Danish life.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it definitely goes to say that the ministry wouldn\u2019t make this bill, if there hadn\u2019t been any occasion for it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing it with fake news, with government elections. We are seeing it with pornography, and we\u2019re also seeing it also with famous people and also everyday people \u2014 like you and me.\u201d<\/p>\n The Danish Rights Alliance, which protects the rights of creative industries on the internet, supports the bill, because its director says that current copyright law doesn\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n Danish voice actor David Bateson, for example, was at a loss when AI voice clones were shared by thousands of users online. Bateson voiced a character in the popular \u201cHitman\u201d video game, as well as Danish toymaker Lego\u2019s English advertisements.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we reported this to the online platforms, they say \u2018OK, but which regulation are you referring to?\u2019\u201d said Maria Fredenslund, an attorney and the alliance\u2019s director. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t point to an exact regulation in Denmark.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018When it\u2019s online, you\u2019re done\u2019<\/p>\n Watson had heard about fellow influencers who found digitally-altered images of themselves online, but never thought it might happen to her.<\/p>\n Delving into a dark side of the web where faceless users sell and share deepfake imagery \u2014 often of women \u2014 she said she was shocked how easy it was to create such pictures using readily available online tools.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could literally just search \u2018deepfake generator\u2019 on Google or \u2018how to make a deepfake,\u2019 and all these websites and generators would pop up,\u201d the 28-year-old Watson said.<\/p>\n She is glad her government is taking action, but she isn\u2019t hopeful. She believes more pressure must be applied to social media platforms.<\/p>\n \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be a thing that you can upload these types of pictures,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen it\u2019s online, you\u2019re done. You can\u2019t do anything, it\u2019s out of your control.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Stefanie Dazio in Berlin, Kelvin Chan in London, and Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) \u2014 In 2021, Danish video game live-streamer Marie Watson received an image of herself from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,9712,218,219,72,73763,3025,73761,969,4644,1595,73762,61,173,3546,60,73765,73764,2617,16136,73766,73767,2393,58,6543,80,2213,268],"class_list":["post-124683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alphabet","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-business","tag-david-bateson","tag-denmark","tag-denmark-government","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-general-news","tag-henry-ajder","tag-ie","tag-inc","tag-intellectual-property","tag-ireland","tag-jakob-engel-schmidt","tag-jakob-plesner-mathiasen","tag-katy-perry","tag-legislation","tag-maria-fredenslund","tag-marie-watson","tag-meta-platforms","tag-social-media","tag-taylor-swift","tag-technology","tag-teens","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}