Deepfake Fears: A funny new tech, or unforseen crisis?

The rapid advancement and accessibility of deepfake technology are fueling a significant and growing fear, fundamentally challenging trust in what we see and hear online. This threat is escalating rapidly, with projections suggesting as much as 90% of online content could be synthetically generated by 2026.

The Core Concerns

Fears surrounding deepfakes are concentrated in three major, high-impact areas:

1. Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery (NCII): This remains the most prevalent misuse, accounting for an estimated 96-98% of deepfake content found online, disproportionately targeting women. This abuse causes severe emotional and psychological harm.
2. Financial Fraud and Identity Theft: Deepfakes enable sophisticated social engineering. Fraud attempts using deepfakes increased tenfold between 2022 and 2023, with financial losses from deepfake-enabled fraud exceeding $200 million in the first quarter of 2025 alone. Scammers are now using cloned voices to impersonate executives and family members to initiate fraudulent transfers.
3. Disinformation and Election Integrity: Hyper-realistic audio and video fakes are used to spread false narratives, undermine public figures, and manipulate political discourse. Instances have already been observed globally, including in recent elections in Slovakia and Nigeria. The rise of deepfakes introduces a “liar’s dividend,” where bad actors can dismiss authentic, damaging content as “fake” due to general public awareness of the technology.

The Response: Legal Action

Governments are aggressively attempting to catch up with the technology:

• Federal Law: In the U.S., the TAKE IT DOWN Act was signed into law in May 2025, marking the first federal statute to criminalize the distribution of nonconsensual intimate images, including AI-generated deepfakes. It requires online platforms to remove flagged content within 48 hours of notification.
• State Activity: State-level deepfake laws have hit a record pace, with 47 states enacting deepfake legislation since 2019, showing an explosion of regulatory activity concentrated in 2024–2025.
• Mandatory Disclosure (Proposed/Enacted): There is a growing global push for laws requiring AI-generated content of any type (image, video, audio) to be labeled as synthetic.

The current challenge is a race between the ever-improving sophistication of deepfake generation tools and the ability of detection technology, public literacy, and legal frameworks to keep pace.