The FBI recently warned in an alert that malicious actors “almost certainly” will be using deepfakes to advance their influence or cyber-operations in the coming weeks and months. The alert notes that foreign actors are already using deepfakes or synthetic media — manipulated digital content including video, audio, images and text — in their influence campaigns. So far, deepfakes have been limited to amateur hobbyists putting celebrities' faces on porn stars' bodies and making politicians say funny things. However, it would be just as easy to create a deepfake of an emergency alert warning of an imminent attack, destroy someone's marriage with a fake sex video, or disrupt a close election by dropping a fake video or audio recording of one of a candidate days before an election.
The FBI warning comes amid concern that if manipulated media is allowed to proliferate unabated, conspiracy theories and maligned influence will become more and more mainstream. Lawmakers have recently enacted a series of laws that address deepfake technology, which frequently is used to harass women, through the creation of fake pornographic videos with the targets of harassment seemingly appearing in the footage. There are no limits to the places people can take things: recently a mother created a deepfake pornographic video of her daughter’s rivals on her cheerleading squad to discredit them.