Major Tech Companies Collaborate to Combat Deepfakes

The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), a consortium of leading IT companies including Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, Twitter, Sony, Nikon, BBC, and Arm, has announced the development of a system to verify the authenticity of photos and videos in order to fight fake content online.

Modern neural networks make it possible to create highly convincing videos that can be used to spread false information, and the average user often lacks the expertise to detect such forgeries. According to Nikkei Asia, the coalition plans to develop a technical standard that will guarantee the integrity of photo and video materials using distributed ledger technology.

Blockchain-Based Verification System

The companies will jointly create a system based on blockchain technology, allowing for quick verification of the authenticity of any image at every stage of its existence. This will be achieved by storing data about the file’s origin, which changes after every manipulation.

The need for trustworthy methods to verify photos and videos has grown with the rise of deepfakes—advanced manipulations using artificial intelligence. The publication highlights a recent fake video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urging troops to surrender, which spread on social media before being debunked.

Industry-Wide Adoption and Future Prospects

C2PA intends to reach out to a wide range of platforms and social networks, such as YouTube, to encourage as many as possible to adopt the new standard for detecting fake content. Traditional methods of detecting forgeries required careful comparison with authentic images. While editing history and other metadata can be preserved, unauthorized tampering is possible with specialized software, sometimes making detection impossible.

The first iterations of this technology are expected to appear later this year. However, developers believe it will take several years to create a mass-market product.