Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 technology
Tuesday 4 February 2020

YouTube: No 'deepfakes' or 'birther' videos in 2020 election

By MATT O'BRIEN to serve in office. That had from the idea in the final
AP Technology Writer been policy before, but stages of his 2016 presiden-
YouTube is making clear wasn't made explicit. tial campaign.
there will be no "birtherism" The company's announce- YouTube said it will also
on its platform during this ment comes about nine crack down on any at-
year's U.S. presidential elec- years after celebrity busi- tempts to artificially in-
tion — a belated response nessman Donald Trump be- crease the number of
to a type of conspiracy gan to get notice for claim- views, likes and comments
theory more prevalent in ing that Barack Obama, on videos. It changed its
the 2012 race. the nation's first African systems for recommending
The Google-owned video American president, was what videos users watch
service is also reiterating not born in the United last year in a push to curb
that it won't allow election- States. harmful misinformation.
related "deepfake" videos Trump repeatedly voiced Twitter and Pinterest also
and anything that aims to citizenship doubts even af- last week outlined their ef-
mislead viewers about vot- This March 20, 2018, file photo shows the YouTube app on an ter Obama produced his forts to reduce election
ing procedures and how iPad. long-form birth certificate. misinformation on their
to participate in the 2020 Associated Press Trump only fully backed off platforms.q
census.
YouTube clarified its rules
ahead of the Iowa caucus- Dating apps leak personal
es Monday. The company
is mostly reiterating content
guidelines that it has been data, Norwegian group says
putting in place since the
last presidential election in
2016. investigating the issue "to
Its ban on technically ma- understand the sufficiency
nipulated videos of po- of Grindr's consent mecha-
litical figures was made nism."
apparent last year when Period tracker app My-
YouTube became the first Days and virtual makeup
major platform to remove app Perfect 365 were also
a doctored video of House among the apps sharing
Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But personal data with ad ser-
the announcement Mon- vices, the report said.
day further clarifies that it Match Group, owner of Tin-
will take down any elec- der and OkCupid, said the
tion-related videos that company shares informa-
are technically altered to tion with third parties only
mislead people in a way when it is "deemed neces-
that goes beyond simply In this July 5, 2015, file photo, a man uses the dating app Tinder sary to operate its platform"
taking clips of speech out in New Delhi. with third party apps. The
of context. The company Associated Press company said it considers
also said it would remove the practice in line with all
doctored videos that could LONDON (AP) — Dating profiling. European and U.S. regu-
cause "serious risk of egre- apps including Grindr, "The situation is completely lations. The U.S. doesn't
gious harm" — such as to OkCupid and Tinder leak out of control," the coun- have federal regulation
make it appear that a gov- personal information to ad- cil said, urging European like the GDPR, although
ernment official is dead. vertising tech companies regulators to enforce the some states, notably Cali-
Facebook, which last year in possible violation of Eu- continent's strict General fornia, have enacted their
had resisted early calls to ropean data privacy laws, Data Privacy Regulation, or own laws. Nine civil rights
yank the Pelosi video, said a Norwegian consumer GDPR. It said the majority groups, including the Amer-
in January that it was ban- group said in a report Tues- of the apps did not present ican Civil Liberties Union of
ning "deepfake" videos, day. users with legally-compliant California, the Electronic
the false but realistic clips The Norwegian Consumer consent mechanisms. Privacy Information Center,
created with artificial intel- Council said it found "seri- The council took action Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG
ligence and sophisticated ous privacy infringements" against some of the com- sent a letter to the Federal
tools. Such videos are still in its analysis of how shad- panies it examined, filing Trade Commission, Con-
fairly rare compared to sim- owy online ad companies formal complaints with gress and state attorneys
pler "cheap fake" manipu- track and profile smart- Norway's data protection general of California, Texas
lations such as were used phone users. authority against Grindr, and Oregon asking them
in the video that altered The council, a govern- Twitter-owned mobile to investigate the apps
Pelosi's speech to make it ment-funded nonprofit app advertising platform named in the report. "Con-
seem like she was slurring group, commissioned cy- MoPub and four ad tech gress should use the find-
her words. bersecurity company Mne- companies. Grindr sent ings of the report as a road
Google also said Monday monic to study 10 Android data including users' GPS map for a new law that en-
that it will remove any vid- mobile apps. It found that location, age and gender sures that such flagrant vio-
eos that advance false the apps sent user data to to the other companies, lations of privacy found in
claims about whether at least 135 different third the council said. the EU are not acceptable
political candidates and party services involved in Twitter said it disabled Grin- in the U.S.," the groups said
elected officials are eligible advertising or behavioral dr's MoPub account and is in a statement.q