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Google is cracking down on deepfakes. The search giant has announced plans to make it easier to remove non-consensual sexually explicit content at scale.<\/p>\n
In the announcement, published through the Google Blog<\/a>, product manager Emma Higham says change has been brought to combat the new form of abuse.<\/p>\n Deepfakes<\/a> are where a person\u2019s face or body has been digitally altered into a photo or video. These are usually sexually explicit and are used maliciously or to spread false information.<\/p>\n While people have long been able to request the removal of images from Search, new systems have been developed to make the process easier.<\/p>\n Higham explains: \u201cWhen someone successfully requests the removal of explicit non-consensual fake content featuring them from Search, Google\u2019s systems will also aim to filter all explicit results on similar searches about them.<\/p>\n \u201cIn addition, when someone successfully removes an image from Search under our policies, our systems will scan for \u2013 and remove \u2013 any duplicates of that image that we find.\u201d<\/p>\n This means copies of the image can be tackled at the same time, stopping the deepfake in its track.<\/p>\n Higham says this has been tested and \u201calready proven to be successful in addressing other types of non-consensual imagery<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThese efforts are designed to give people added peace of mind, especially if they\u2019re concerned about similar content about them popping up in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Google is making it harder for the images to even appear in search results too as these fake content creations will be lowered in the rankings.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst, we\u2019re rolling out ranking updates that will lower explicit fake content for many searches.<\/p>\n \u201cFor queries that are specifically seeking this content and include people\u2019s names, we\u2019ll aim to surface high-quality, non-explicit content \u2014 like relevant news articles \u2014 when it\u2019s available.<\/p>\n \u201cThe updates we\u2019ve made this year have reduced exposure to explicit image results on these types of queries by over 70%. With these changes, people can read about the impact deepfakes are having on society, rather than see pages with actual non-consensual fake images.\u201d<\/p>\n Google will be demoting sites that receive a high volume of removals for fake explicit imagery<\/a>, preventing them from being shown when searched for.<\/p>\n While these new features mark a major change, Higham says \u201cthere\u2019s more work to do to address this issue,\u201d with more solutions to be developed going forward.<\/p>\nGoogle Search will lower rankings for websites reported for deepfakes<\/b><\/h2>\n