Deepfakes have an effect on opinions, ‘people fall for it’

People called deepfakesmanipulated videos, seeing politicians, for example, can start to think more negatively about that person. That has research from the University of Amsterdam among 278 people.

With deepfakes, videos are adjusted with the help of smart algorithms, so that you can, for example, have a famous person say completely different things than he actually does. For their study, the researchers manipulated a video of former CDA leader Buma.

The group that saw the fake video thought more negatively about the politician afterwards than the group that watched the original video. The attitude towards the whole party remained almost the same in both situations.

‘People are falling for it’

Incidentally, the manipulation was successful, says UvA researcher Tom Dobber: only 8 of the 140 people who saw the video doubted its authenticity. “And this one was not even perfect, you could see that the lips moved crazy. It is remarkable that people kick it full.”

Furthermore, when using deepfakes, the effects of so-called microtargeting, showing the video to a specific target audience. In this case it concerned Christians.

It was noticeable that, after seeing the manipulated video, that group generally did not think much more negatively about the CDA politician. That difference was there with specifically CDA-voting, religious Christians: they reacted more strongly to the video.

Frenetic pace

But the danger of microtargeting is difficult to estimate, says Dobber. “We have shown that there is a pretty big effect on that very specific group of Christians, but we didn’t realize that until we did the research. We expected all Christians to react strongly to that, but that was not the case. you may wonder whether it is realistic that deepfakes can be abused in that particular way. “

Sending different deepfakes to multiple people can amplify that effect. But, the scientists say, that danger is not yet in sight, because the technology is not yet working optimally. That can change quickly, because technology is developing at breakneck speed.

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