Google is cracking down on deepfakes. The search giant has announced plans to make it easier to remove non-consensual sexually explicit content at scale.
In the announcement, published through the Google Blog, product manager Emma Higham says change has been brought to combat the new form of abuse.
Deepfakes are where a person’s face or body has been digitally altered into a photo or video. These are usually sexually explicit and are used maliciously or to spread false information.
While people have long been able to request the removal of images from Search, new systems have been developed to make the process easier.
Higham explains: “When someone successfully requests the removal of explicit non-consensual fake content featuring them from Search, Google’s systems will also aim to filter all explicit results on similar searches about them.
“In addition, when someone successfully removes an image from Search under our policies, our systems will scan for – and remove – any duplicates of that image that we find.”
This means copies of the image can be tackled at the same time, stopping the deepfake in its track.
Higham says this has been tested and “already proven to be successful in addressing other types of non-consensual imagery.
“These efforts are designed to give people added peace of mind, especially if they’re concerned about similar content about them popping up in the future.”
Google Search will lower rankings for websites reported for deepfakes
Google is making it harder for the images to even appear in search results too as these fake content creations will be lowered in the rankings.
“First, we’re rolling out ranking updates that will lower explicit fake content for many searches.
“For queries that are specifically seeking this content and include people’s names, we’ll aim to surface high-quality, non-explicit content — like relevant news articles — when it’s available.
“The updates we’ve made this year have reduced exposure to explicit image results on these types of queries by over 70%. With these changes, people can read about the impact deepfakes are having on society, rather than see pages with actual non-consensual fake images.”
Google will be demoting sites that receive a high volume of removals for fake explicit imagery, preventing them from being shown when searched for.
While these new features mark a major change, Higham says “there’s more work to do to address this issue,” with more solutions to be developed going forward.
Image Credit: Via Ideogram
