Hi Rose,
Thank you for highlighting the serious issue of deep fakes and impersonating social media accounts in this blog post.
The potential impacts of these attacks can be extremely harmful! Some celebrities already became victims of deepfake videos meant to defame them. A friend of mine experienced a phishing call where the caller’s voice sounded exactly like his, and they tried to scam his parents for money. Really, any of us can be a target of these disturbing impersonations and it’s scary to think about.
I read up about it further and found an article by McAfee that offers excellent advice on defending against deepfake attacks and steps to report a video if you’re a victim. As for friends and family, I think that one practical advice to protect ourselves from impersonating calls/chat are to agree upon some secret “code words” or facts as identity verification if the conversation becomes suspicious. Generally speaking though, it’s increasingly more important to pay attention to our digital footprints as AI technology rapidly advances, and we have yet to develop robust systems to protect ourselves. I hope that the governments, schools and workplaces can raise awareness and educate more people on these matters.
Thanks again for a great read!