Unit 3: The Rapid Spread of Fake News (1ère AMC)

Deep Fake on the Queen (2020)

The document under study is an article from The Guardian published in December 2020. The article deals with Channel 4 deep fake video on the Queen. It was a controversial video as it depicted the Queen in a different version of her usual Christmas speech. In fact, people are very respectful of the Royal family. As a result, this video was considered as being disrespectful. Moreover, it raised the debate on deep fakes. The role of the Queen was played by an actress called Debra Stephenson. The goal of the video was to strongly warn people against the threat of fake news in our digital era. Indeed, now we cannot trust what we see with our own eyes. On top of that, in the future deep fakes will be more common. The main problem of deep fakes is that people could use someone else’s identity to create a deep fake and make a video without their consent.

In order to use the technology of the deep fakes properly, they should be handled by adding disclaimers or remarks before sharing or broadcasting them.

Homework: Learn the lesson.