Internal Emails Show FBI Freaking Out About Deepfakes

See More →At least some officials in the FBI were seemingly caught off guard by the emergence of deepfakes in 2018, with one acknowledging that the Bureau did not have the capability to detect the altered images at the time, according to a series of internal FBI emails obtained by Motherboard. The context was a Washington Post newsletter titled “Doctored videos could send fake news crisis into overdrive, lawmakers warn.”“No,” came the response from another OTD official. “That is our best current USG [U.S. government] research effort to address this problem,” the OTD official added in their email. Other emails show FBI officials thinking what other implications for deepfakes may be. William McKinsey, section chief of the information technology section at FBI, replied “I googled face swapping and learned a lot.”Advertisement“Pls follow [redacted by FBI] closely.