‘DeepFakes’ face regulation by Chinese government in draft release

Deepfakes will be facing a ‘clamp down’ by the Chinese government, according to a draft of an upcoming law.

‘Deepfakes’ is the practice of using AI to adapt existing digital content into realistic simulations of humans and has faced scrutiny due to the realistic nature of them.

The Cyberspace Administration of China’s draft emerged last Friday, and it frames the need for regulation if the government is able to achieve its desire of using the internet as a tool for social good.

The explanatory memorandum for the policy states that digitally created voice, video, chatbots, or manipulated faces and gestures will attract criminals and fraudsters. The draft outlines how the use of such fakes for any application that could disrupt social order, infringe individuals’ rights, deliver fake news, or depict sexual activity, should be regulated or ruled out entirely. It suggests implementing a grant of permission for use before it can be employed for legitimate purposes.

Those legitimate uses are not discussed within the draft, but it does go into detail on regulations for how digital assets must be safeguarded to prevent user privacy.

Uses of what China calls ‘Deep Synthesis’ must be clearly labelled as a digital creation to keep the viewer immediately aware of the legitimacy of the media, according to the draft.

The draft also goes on to say that service providers must have excellent security measures in place and to always act in the national interest.

The nation’s big tech companies all received the same message over the weekend, during symposium which had an aim of promoting the healthy and sustainable development of internet companies.

27 ‘heads of’ were in attendance, and all heard Chinese regulators explain their desire for internet platforms to be both innovative a problem-solving as well as being defenders of Chinese values.

‘Big Tech’ was called on by deputy director of China’s Central Propaganda Department, Zhuang Rongwen, to ensure it both strengthens Chinese society with ‘brilliant’ online services and to also step up its vigilance on keeping Chinese internet free of content that Beijing believes are bad for society.

Leaders from the People’s Daily Online, JD.com, Kuaishou, Xiaomi, and Meituan all shared their views on how this vigilance can be achieved however these comments did not appear in the Administrations release of the event.