YouTube gears up for election season by enlisting creators to combat deepfakes

YouTube has introduced two new tools for creators who want to remove realistic, AI-generated depictions of their likeness — a.k.a. deepfakes.

The new tools will be added to YouTube’s ever-growing arsenal of rights management products. Users of the audio fingerprinting service Content ID will gain access to “synthetic-singing identification technology,” which will allow them to find and manage deepfaked recreations of their singing voices. That option will debut with a pilot program that’s slated to kick off “early next year.”

For the creators who are concerned about IP other than their singing voices, YouTube is introducing a second piece of detection software. It is developing a tool that will allow users to identify deepfaked versions of their faces and take appropriate action.

“Since 2007, Content ID has provided granular control to rightsholders across their entire catalogs on YouTube—with billions of claims processed every year—while simultaneously generating billions in new revenue for artists and creators through reuse of their work,” reads a YouTube blog post. “We’re committed to bringing this same level of protection and empowerment into the AI age.”

YouTube’s commitment to combatting deepfakes has come in response to widespread creator outcries about the potential danger of that technology (especially when issues like IP and misinformation are taken into account). Concerns about nefarious use of generative AI tend to increase during election season, when platforms must be on the lookout for politically-motivated AI fakery.

YouTube braced for an influx of deepfakes back in July, when it revised its guidelines to permit the removal of realistic depictions of people’s likenesses. The individuals targeted by those copies must call for the removal themselves, and as YouTube rolls out more anti-deepfake tools, it is still “empowering choice.” Some creators may choose to study their deepfakes rather than delete them. If that’s what they wish for, YouTube is willing to accommodate them.