No special treatment: fake video of Zuckerberg stays on Instagram
Part of project 'Spectre', which looks at the outsize influence of tech and social media
San Francisco: Instagram will refrain from taking down an ultra realistic "deepfake video" posted on Tuesday of Facebook's CEO bragging about controlling billions of people's "stolen" personal data.
"Imagine this for a second: one man with total control of billions of people's stolen data, all their secrets, their lives, their futures," an AI-generated Mark Zuckerberg says in the video.
"I owe it all to Spectre. Spectre showed me that whoever controls the data controls the future."
The video was shared by British artist Bill Posters as part of the promotion for his project "Spectre," which looks at the outsize influence of technology and social media.
"We will treat this content the same way we treat all misinformation on Instagram," said an Instagram spokesperson.
"If third-party fact-checkers mark it as false, we will filter it from Instagram's recommendation surfaces."
"Spectre," which is named after the secret villanous organisation from the James Bond films, aims to discuss the power of digital influencers and information online, as well as what can or cannot be believed.
According to his website, Posters and fellow artist Daniel Howe teamed up with AI startups to create "deepfake" videos of celebrities ranging from Kim Kardashian to President Donald Trump saying ridiculous things.
Posters and Howe are not trying to trick internet users, as all the videos are labeled with the hashtag #deepfake. But their work shines a light on the proliferation of faked videos online, especially as AI technology advances.
The video of Zuckerberg manipulates an actual statement from the CEO, and refers to Facebook's recent controversies over both stolen user data and one such manipulated video.
Facebook recently came under fire for refusing to block the sharing of a video of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that was doctored to make her appear drunk or impaired.
Pelosi called on the social media giant to block the video, saying Facebook "knows that this is false".
Facebook did not remove the video but is quoted in media reports as saying that the video had been tagged as false and sank in the network's news feed ranking.