Digital Democracy 101: Understanding Deepfakes and Synthetic Media’s Effect on Canada’s Democracy

Before you vote, learn about deepfakes and synthetic media

Discover how you cannot always believe what you see on digital platforms in this free lecture by Carl Miller, Research Director at Demos. He’ll explain how synthetic media can harm democracy.

New technology can create fake photos and videos that look very, very real. Movies and TV use this technology to create amazing special effects, but when it gets in the wrong hands it can be used to show real people doing and saying things that they haven’t. It’s called a deepfake, and it can be especially dangerous during an election, a time when we make important choices based on what candidates say and do.

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 Learn more about synthetic media and deepfakes

This is one of three free public lectures hosted by the Public Policy Forum and its partners that explain how our democracy is affected by the manipulation of information and trust on digital platforms. For details on the other lectures, you can check out our Digital Democracy 101 project page.