Matt Price of ZeroFox explained the significance of the rise of deepfakes leading up to the 2020 presidential elections, stating that he has seen proofs of concepts of deepfakes that could be used to create fake news in the upcoming elections. However, Price claims that he hasn’t seen any public deepfakes that appear to have malicious intentions. Price describes a scenario in which a deepfake of a political candidate is dropped and goes viral three days before the election. Price argues that this wouldn’t be enough time to verify if the video is a deepfake or not, and could have enormous effects on the election results in just a few days. Social media platforms are exploring how they can halt the spread of deepfakes that are created for malicious intent before they go viral, and Twitter is polling users on what method they prefer.
Price describes other risks to presidential elections in the US, including imposters and political scams. While these two issues can be solved through simple policing, the issue of deepfakes and video authenticity remains unaddressed, despite warnings from members of Congress. In the near future, Price says legislation against deepfakes is imperative to the political stability of the US.
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