by Linda Mork
Quick Summary
In the second Media Landscapes webinar, John Mack Freeman discussed deepfakes: how they are made, what issues they present, and why libraries should care.
Deepfakes are a relatively new form of "synthetic media" that take a person in an existing image or video and replace them with someone else's likeness using artificial neural networks, creating sometimes incredibly realistic results.
Librarian John Mack Freeman opened his recent Media Landscapes webinar on the topic with a viral video that certainly appears to feature Tom Cruise, but it's actually not Tom Cruise at all. Freeman explains how deepfakes like this are made and how we can (or, more likely, can't) detect them. Despite the entertainment value they may sometimes provide, deepfakes raise deeply problematic issues. Freeman offers questions and resources for librarians and educators that will be essential to consider as we strive to stay educated about our constantly evolving media landscape.
You can find the webinar recording and discussion questions here.
Thanks to all of you who attended! Don't miss our upcoming May presenters in the series:
- Lisa Hinz on Critical Thinking and Evaluating Information - Wed., May 5 at 1:00 PM
- Michael Spikes on Using News Literacy to Make Sense of the Current Media Landscape - Tues., May 25 at 2:00 PM
