Fake Out Challenge: Can you spot a deepfake video?

A new challenge tests Aussies to see if they can spot a fake video when compared to the original. How good are you at picking the deepfake?

Could you identify a “fake” video if you saw it?

Neuropsychologist Dr Simon Cropper of the University of Melbourne is running the Fake Out challenge during Science Week which hopes to get as many people as possible to complete a quiz asking them to pick whether a video is the fake or real version.

Credible fake videos, known as deepfakes, are seen as a potential source of online disinformation.

They look real but they are not. Examples have included videos where a celebrity’s face has been put on to a porn star’s body. A Buzzfeed video released in 2018 also showed former US president Barack Obama saying things he never said.

“This is a dangerous time. Moving forward, we need to be more vigilant with what we trust from the internet,” Oscar-winning filmmaker Jordan Peele says as Obama.

The video was released to warn of the “rapidly evolving threat posed by digital misinformation”.

Dr Cropper told news.com.au that Facebook created their own deepfake challenge to see whether artificial intelligence could detect the “fake” videos.

“Facebook made the videos, some of them had very subtle changes compared to the original,” he said.

Facebook’s challenge found computers were able to pick the fake versions about 65 per cent of the time and Dr Cropper said his research aimed to see whether humans could do better.

“(The computer’s result) is little better than guessing,” he said.

The Fake Out challenge asks people to look at the same video and see if they are better than computers at picking the fake ones.

So far it seems humans are winning and are able to identify an average of 70 per cent of the fake videos.

“We are really good at this stuff and seem to be much better than machines,” Dr Cropper said.

Test how good you are in the video below or you can complete the full Fake Out challenge here.

Dr Cropper also hopes to identify whether some people are better than others at detecting fakes and why this is.

“Are there particular aspects of manipulation that they are better at noticing?”

He said there were suggestions that blinking could be a clue or the way muscles in the face move.

“We are interested in what people use to make the decision,” he said.

Dr Cropper said people don’t often realise how believable deepfake videos could be and how easily they can be made.

“They can be used for innocuous spread of misinformation but they can also be less innocuous and more dangerous purposes, particularly as people start relying on different sources of news.”

It’s hoped that the challenge will help people realise that fake videos can be hard to spot and to think about what they are sharing.

“Potentially one of the recommendations (out of this study) could be sharing quotas so people don’t share everything, it forces them to make a decision,” he said.

“It may not be popular but we need to think more about what we are sharing, so that it’s not such an easy decision to make.”

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Originally published as Fake Out Challenge: Can you spot a deepfake video?