In a recent blog post, Microsoft announced two new technologies to combat disinformation: a Video Authenticator tool and technology to either detect manipulated content or assure people that the media they’re viewing is authentic.

In today’s world disinformation is trending and widespread. According to the blog post, a Microsoft endorsed research by Princeton, which indicates that various countries around the world were targeted between 2013-2019 by influence campaigns to defame notable people, persuade the public or polarize debates. The public cloud vendor has joined the fight in disinformation with its Defending Democracy Program. Moreover, through the program, they helped secure campaigns such as AccountGuard and further strengthened the protection of journalism.

As disinformation comes in many forms, Microsoft has been working on two different technologies to address various aspects of the problem. The first is to tackle ‘deepfakes’, which are media available online such as photos, videos or audio files that are manipulated by artificial intelligence (AI) in hard-to-detect ways; making people, for instance, appear in places they have never been or say things they never did. Yet, with Microsoft’s Video Authenticator can analyze and score photos and video’s determining a percentage chance whether or not it is artificially manipulated.

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