Google has announced a significant update to its search algorithms to combat the rising threat of explicit deep fakes.
Why the Google search algorithm update?
Google’s latest update specifically targets non-consensual explicit content, including artificially generated videos and images, known as “deep fakes.”
Google’s offensive has three front lines:
- To protect individuals from non-consensual sexually explicit fake content.
- To streamline its deep fake content removal processes.
- To penalize sites promoting deep fake explicit content with ranking reductions.
Google announced the search algorithm update on July 31:
Critical changes in Google’s ranking system
Google’s new strategy for combating deepfake content includes streamlining its removal process from the Search Results and adjusting its ranking algorithm to reduce the visibility of deepfake from appearing.
Google’s ranking update will:
- Reduce the visibility of deepfake content by engaging search queries that are likely to return non-consensual explicit results.
- Prioritize providing secure and authoritative sources (like news articles) for search queries seeking deepfake content or using people’s names.
- Penalize websites with a heavy percentage of fake explicit imagery by reducing their search rankings.
Streamlining the content removal process
Google’s updated systems will remove the reported original non-consensual explicit fake content from its search results and scan the web to remove duplicate or similar content.
Google said
Emma Higham, Google Product Manager, said this about the update:
- “These changes are major updates to our protections on Search, but there’s more work to do to address this issue, and we’ll keep developing new solutions to help people affected by this content.”
Google’s latest algorithm update is a continuous effort to ensure Search can adapt to the ever-evolving fake explicit digital content challenges.
What impact has the Google search algorithm update had so far?
Google has already reported that the update has considerably reduced explicit imagery shown in searches, with a 70% decrease in specific queries.
Besides removing the offending deep fake content, Google will now promote factual results about individuals and display educational content regarding deepfakes’ effect on society.
Google also said:
- “With these changes, people can read about the impact deep fakes are having on society, rather than see pages with actual non-consensual fake images.”
