Abstract
Artificial intelligence technologies are beneficial for individuals' lives, but those technologies are also sources of mass and chaos. Due to hyper-realistic videos based on artificial intelligence, deepfakes have effects on the public and individuals in terms of manipulation. Researchers try to warn the public and individuals about the threats and harms of these technologies. Moreover, users cannot distinguish whether it is real and fake. As it is known, children and youths are vulnerable to the dark side of technology. So, for risks and harms of technology, digital citizenship is advised as a protection method. In this chapter, the long-term effects of digital citizenship in terms of protecting children and youths from the dangers and threats of deepfakes will be discussed in depth.
TopIntroduction
To distinguish between real and “fake” media becomes more complex through contemporary technologies (Westerlund, 2019; Anderson, 2018). Fake news and disinformation are primarily characterized by manipulating news, individuals, and the public. However, through novel technologies, some applications such as “deepfake” become more pervasive and visible. Deepfake is defined as audiovisual manipulating applications based on artificial intelligence (AI) (Yadlin-Segal & Oppnheim, 2020) to fool or deceive someone by saying or doing things that never happened (Westerlund, 2019). Moreover, deepfake can offer opportunities to manipulators or abusers to blur the detection of information, whether it is accurate or fake (Yadlin- Segal & Oppenheim, 2020; Chesney & Citron, 2019). Therefore, it sounds so troubling for parents, educators, and citizens, recalling a nightmare (Chesney & Citron, 2019). Until the deepfake technology, researchers discussed the dangers of fake news in the context of public discourse, human society, and democracy (Quayyum, Quadir, Janjua & Sher, 2019; Westerlund, 2019). As known, fake news is content that aims to deceive the public, and it can be spread so fast on social media (Aldwairi & Alwahedi, 2018; Figueira & Oliveira, 2017). According to researchers, deepfake technologies relate to disinformation, misinformation, manipulation, exploitation, and polarization, which are believed to prevent digital citizenship competencies (Yadlin- Segal & Oppenheim, 2020; Hintz et al., 2017). Considering this information, all components of digital citizenship and their relationship with deepfake will be discussed in depth. The chapter is organized as follows. After the introduction, the chapter explains the technology of deepfakes, the potential benefits of deepfake technology, the threats of deepfakes to children and youths, features of digital citizenship competencies, protection role of digital citizenship to threats of deepfakes. Finally, the chapter concludes with solutions, recommendations, and suggestions for future studies.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Digital Citizenship: Refers to the responsible use of technology by anyone who uses computers, the Internet, and digital devices to engage with society on any level.
Deepfake: Video of a person in which their face or body has been digitally altered so that they appear to be someone else, typically used maliciously or to spread false information.
Artificial Intelligence: The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.
Cybersecurity: The application of technologies, processes, and controls to protect systems, networks, programs, devices and data from cyber attacks