New rules went into effect in China on Tuesday to regulate the use of deepfakes, the increasingly realistic digital video manipulations that have sparked disinformation fears around the globe.
Deepfake technology allows users to replace one person's face with another in a video, or to put words into a speaker's mouth, with at times disconcerting realism.
The technique relies on artificial intelligence and has proven popular on social media, where amusing and often uncanny creations featuring face-swapping celebrities abound.
However, the technology can "also be used by unscrupulous people... to disseminate illegal information... defame and sully the reputation of others, and steal identities in order to commit fraud", the Chinese cyberspace administration warned last month.
Deepfakes present a "danger to national security and social stability" if they are not regulated, it said.
The new regulations require businesses offering deepfake services to obtain the real identities of their users. They also require deepfake content to be appropriately labelled to avoid "any confusion" on the part of the public.
