White House includes NSF research on deepfakes among threats to free speech

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has new priorities, and while some might call them great priorities – tremendous priorities, even, the best priorities in the world – they do not include research on deepfakes.

Updated guidance on the NSF website reflects a recent Executive Order from the White House, ostensibly aimed at “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship.” Its argument leans heavily on the First Amendment, and the attendant belief that “government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.”

According to the EO, “the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve.”

The Trump government’s current quest to restore free speech to America has also included banning books by Pulitzer prize-winning authors, scrubbing the history of slavery in the States, seizing control of one of its most respected arts institutions, and barring the Associated Press from briefings when it refused to use Trump’s preferred geographical term for the Gulf of Mexico.

The substance of the latest order, then, appears to be that Donald Trump hopes to allow Facebook users to post as many misleading political deepfakes as they please, and perhaps to give a nod to all those on X giggling at the chance to say naughty words out loud.

As is the case with most of Trump’s Executive Orders, what this one says it will do and what it will actually accomplish are two different beasts. NextGov reports that $328 million worth of research grants to institutions has disappeared in the NSF restructuring, and that “disinformation research and empowerment of underprivileged people in STEM fields” were prime targets.

Presumably included under the umbrella of disinformation research, deepfake detection is among the programs to lose funding. NextGov says “other cancelled grants included nearly two dozen projects devoted to disinformation research, election security, cyber-physical systems protection and the CyberCorps scholarship program.”

The implied association of deepfake disinformation with free speech clashes with the view offered by a UK government case study, which called deepfakes “arguably the greatest challenge of the online age.”

There is suspicion that the decimation of funds for federal science research has been pushed by the notorious DOGE, at the behest of Elon Musk – the world’s richest man, who owns one of the largest social media companies, has been known to throw a sieg heil for a laugh, and has been given free rein to gut U.S. federal government agencies.

NextGov quotes an anonymous source, who says “they’re taking a wrecking ball to everything, and it should ring alarm bells in the community.”

Deepfake scams increasingly target executives and their families: study

Alarm bells are certainly ringing in the biometrics and digital identity world, as the scale and scope of the deepfake threat continues to emerge. A new report from the Ponemon Institute, sponsored by BlackCloak, focuses on the risk to executives.

A release says the study, which surveyed 586 security professionals in the U.S. who understand deepfake risks, finds that U.S. security practitioners say the most common deepfakes impersonate executives’ trusted entities such as board members, often trying to facilitate urgent payments. Among respondents, 42 percent say their executives and board members have been targeted at least once by a fake image or deepfake video.

Ponemon identified two types of deepfakes that are of “most significant concern”: social impostors and financial fraud. More than half of respondents say “a zero-trust mindset is essential to distinguish between what is authentic and what is fake in messages.”

Forty-eight percent of respondents say their organizations “incorporate the risk of cyberthreats against executives in their personal lives, especially high-profile individuals, in their cyber, IT, and physical security strategies and budget.”

“More organizations are experiencing the impact of deepfake threats, an alarming use of AI that many expect to worsen in the months ahead,” says Dr. Larry Ponemon, Chairman of the Ponemon Institute. “As personal attacks against executives and their family members increase, organizations are ill-equipped to combat such attacks. To address this issue, they are dedicating more resources to safeguard their leaders and prevent such threats.”

The full report, Deepfake Deception: How AI Harms the Fortunes and Reputation of Executives and Corporations, is available here.

UK government declares deepfakes ‘greatest challenge of the online age’

Article Topics

biometrics  |  biometrics research  |  BlackCloak  |  deepfake detection  |  deepfakes  |  fraud prevention  |  national science foundation  |  U.S. Government