COPENHAGEN: In 2021, Danish video game live-streamer Marie Watson received an image of herself from an unknown Instagram account.
She instantly recognized the holiday snap from her Instagram account, but something was different: Her clothing had been digitally removed to make her appear naked. It was a deepfake.
“It overwhelmed me so much,” Watson recalled. “I just started bursting out in tears, because suddenly, I was there naked.”
In the four years since her experience, deepfakes — highly realistic artificial intelligence-generated images, videos or audio of real people or events — have become not only easier to make worldwide but also look or sound exponentially more realistic. That’s thanks to technological advances and the proliferation of generative AI tools, including video generation tools from OpenAI and Google.
These tools give millions of users the ability to easily spit out content, including for nefarious purposes that range from depicting celebrities Taylor Swift and Katy Perry to disrupting elections and humiliating teens and women.
Copyright law
In response, Denmark is seeking to protect ordinary Danes, as well as performers and artists who might have their appearance or voice imitated and shared without their permission. A bill that’s expected to pass early next year would change copyright law by imposing a ban on the sharing of deepfakes to protect citizens’ personal characteristics — such as their appearance or voice — from being imitated and shared online without their consent.
If enacted, Danish citizens would get the copyright over their own likeness. In theory, they then would be able to demand that online platforms take down content shared without their permission. The law would still allow for parodies and satire, though it’s unclear how that will be determined.
Experts and officials say the Danish legislation would be among the most extensive steps yet taken by a government to combat misinformation through deepfakes.
Henry Ajder, founder of consulting firm Latent Space Advisory and a leading expert in generative AI, said that he applauds the Danish government for recognizing that the law needs to change.
“Because right now, when people say ‘what can I do to protect myself from being deepfaked?’ the answer I have to give most of the time is: ‘There isn’t a huge amount you can do,’” he said, ”without me basically saying, ‘scrub yourself from the Internet entirely.’ Which isn’t really possible.”
He added: “We can’t just pretend that this is business as usual for how we think about those key parts of our identity and our dignity.”
Deepfakes and misinformation
US President Donald Trump signed bipartisan legislation in May that makes it illegal to knowingly publish or threaten to publish intimate images without a person’s consent, including deepfakes. Last year, South Korea rolled out measures to curb deepfake porn, including harsher punishment and stepped up regulations for social media platforms.
Danish Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt said that the bill has broad support from lawmakers in Copenhagen, because such digital manipulations can stir doubts about reality and spread misinformation.
“If you’re able to deepfake a politician without her or him being able to have that product taken down, that will undermine our democracy,” he told reporters during an AI and copyright conference in September.
The right balance
The law would apply only in Denmark, and is unlikely to involve fines or imprisonment for social media users. But big tech platforms that fail to remove deepfakes could face severe fines, Engel-Schmidt said.
Ajder said Google-owned YouTube, for example, has a “very, very good system for getting the balance between copyright protection and freedom of creativity.”
The platform’s efforts suggest that it recognizes “the scale of the challenge that is already here and how much deeper it’s going to become,” he added.
Twitch, TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Engel-Schmidt said that Denmark, the current holder of the European Union’s rotating presidency, had received interest in its proposed legislation from several other EU members, including France and Ireland.
Intellectual property lawyer Jakob Plesner Mathiasen said that the legislation shows the widespread need to combat the online danger that’s now infused into every aspect of Danish life.
“I think it definitely goes to say that the ministry wouldn’t make this bill, if there hadn’t been any occasion for it,” he said. “We’re seeing it with fake news, with government elections. We are seeing it with pornography, and we’re also seeing it also with famous people and also everyday people — like you and me.”
The Danish Rights Alliance, which protects the rights of creative industries on the Internet, supports the bill, because its director says that current copyright law doesn’t go far enough.
Danish voice actor David Bateson, for example, was at a loss when AI voice clones were shared by thousands of users online. Bateson voiced a character in the popular “Hitman” video game, as well as Danish toymaker Lego’s English advertisements.
“When we reported this to the online platforms, they say ‘OK, but which regulation are you referring to?’” said Maria Fredenslund, an attorney and the alliance’s director. “We couldn’t point to an exact regulation in Denmark.”
‘When it’s online, you’re done’
Watson had heard about fellow influencers who found digitally-altered images of themselves online, but never thought it might happen to her.
Delving into a dark side of the web where faceless users sell and share deepfake imagery — often of women — she said she was shocked how easy it was to create such pictures using readily available online tools.
“You could literally just search ‘deepfake generator’ on Google or ‘how to make a deepfake,’ and all these websites and generators would pop up,” the 28-year-old Watson said.
She is glad her government is taking action, but she isn’t hopeful. She believes more pressure must be applied to social media platforms.
“It shouldn’t be a thing that you can upload these types of pictures,” she said. “When it’s online, you’re done. You can’t do anything, it’s out of your control.”
Denmark eyes new law to protect citizens from AI deepfakes
https://arab.news/w6hq9
Denmark eyes new law to protect citizens from AI deepfakes
- In the four years since her experience, deepfakes, highly realistic artificial intelligence-generated images, videos or audio of real people or events, have become not only easier to make worldwide but also look or sound exponentially more realistic
Trump’s Iran war violates international law, experts say
- Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the attack on Iran “had no justification under international law“
- “The US probably could have prevented any Israeli attack on Iran by virtue of the leverage afforded by critical US military support,” said Finucane
WASHINGTON: The United States insists it attacked Iran to curb “direct threats” from the Islamic republic, but legal experts say the dangers cited by Washington do not justify war under international law.
US and Israeli forces launched a massive air campaign against Iran on February 28, with Washington saying it aimed to curb nuclear and missile threats from Tehran. Yet the war has also decapitated the country’s government, and President Donald Trump is now demanding “unconditional surrender.”
The White House laid out Washington’s justification for the war during a news conference this week.
“This decision to launch this operation was based on a cumulative effect of various direct threats that Iran posed to the United States of America, and the president’s feeling, based on fact, that Iran does pose (an) imminent and direct threat,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday.
She went on to cite Iranian sponsorship of “terrorism,” its ballistic missile program and its alleged efforts to “create nuclear weapons and nuclear bombs.”
But Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the attack on Iran “had no justification under international law.”
“The law is clear that international disputes are to be resolved using peaceful means — negotiation, mediation, the intervention of international organizations,” said O’Connell, an expert in international law on the use of force and international legal theory.
The Trump administration has offered “vague mentions of imminent attacks by Iran and to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” while the UN Charter “requires, at the least, that evidence of a significant attack by Iran be underway,” she said.
- ‘Even less plausible’ -
“No shred of such evidence has been provided. Nor is there any right whatsoever to start a war over a weapons program.”
While Leavitt cited threats from missiles and militants, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a different justification for the war earlier in the week: fears that an Israeli attack would trigger reprisals against US forces.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser for the International Crisis Group’s US Program, said there were several issues with Rubio’s explanation, including that the Trump administration has since offered other rationales for the war.
“The US probably could have prevented any Israeli attack on Iran by virtue of the leverage afforded by critical US military support,” said Finucane, who previously worked in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the US Department of State.
The Iran war is not the only legally dubious military intervention by the Trump administration.
In early September, the United States began carrying out strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and later the eastern Pacific — a campaign that has killed more than 150 people.
The US government has yet to provide definitive evidence that the vessels it targets are involved in drug trafficking, and legal experts and rights groups say the strikes likely amount to extrajudicial killings.
Trump also ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear sites last year, and sent US forces into Caracas in early January to seize leftist Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, who is now on trial in the United States.
Finucane said Trump’s Friday demand for “unconditional surrender” by Iran “further undercuts prior justifications for US military action.”
“The administration has not even bothered to argue that Operation Epic Fury complies with international law, but certainly statements like this make any such argument even less plausible,” he said, referring to the Iran operation.
