Google makes it easier to hide explicit deepfakes in search results

Google, obscene deepfakeReleased some updates to Search to make ‘s as difficult to find as possible. In its move, the company has begun making it easier for people to remove non-consensual fake images featuring themselves from Search, as part of its long-running fight against manipulated images that appear realistic.

Under Google’s policies, users have been able to request the removal of such images for a long time. With the new update, when a person’s removal request is accepted, all open results in similar searches related to that person will also be filtered. The company’s systems will scan for copies of the offending image and remove them as well.

In addition, Google also updated their ranking system. If a user searches for explicit deepfake specifically by a person’s name, the results will show high-quality, non-explicit content instead. For example; If there is information about that person, such as news articles, the results will contain that, not the searched content.

Despite all this, Google does not want to delete legitimate content results, such as an actor’s nude scene, in order to completely eliminate deepfakes from the results page. The company admits it still has a lot of work to do when it comes to distinguishing between legitimate and fake sexually explicit images.

While this is still a work in progress for the company, one solution Google is implementing is to demote sites that receive high amounts of removals for manipulated images in Search. Stating that this is a very strong sign that this is not a high-quality site, Google says that this approach has also worked for other types of harmful content in the past.