It's easier than ever to make a deepfake of someone else's voice or face, but at least YouTube is making some small changes that make it a little easier to report a video that uses your likeness without consent.
You can now submit deepfake removal requests to YouTube through the privacy request process, whereas previously you could only report these impersonations as being misleading. This change tells us that YouTube is considering deepfakes as a privacy issue, rather than a content moderation issue – and it is a privacy issue. The more ai tools we have at our disposal, the more they will be abused.
YouTube says it won’t automatically remove these videos, but will instead take into account factors such as whether it’s a parody or satire, whether the person making the request can be identified, or whether it’s a parody of a public figure — in which case, YouTube says, there will be a higher bar. The platform is also working on a process like this to remove deepfakes of copyrighted music, which have become increasingly common with tools like Suno and Udio.
The success or failure of this measure will depend on how well it is implemented. If YouTube can speed up the process of removing potentially harmful content, we will consider it a victory.