Microsoft Is Tackling Deepfake Porn With StopNCII Partnership

Microsoft is tackling Deepfake porn with its new partnership with StopNCII, an organization fighting against the spread of non-consensual images.

With the rise of AI, came the rise of image generation. It is a powerful tool with capabilities beyond imagination. It has assisted in streamlining the creative process. To put it simply, AI has helped users bring out their creative side. However, with its perks, AI also comes with its fair share of downsides and deepfakes, particularly ‘deepfake porn’ is among them.

Deepfake porn is abusive sexual and non-consensual AI images posted and spread on the internet. This phenomenon has become a recurrent problem with the rise of AI. However, some companies, especially Microsoft is tackling deepfake porn on their own accord.

Microsoft is Tacking Deepfake Porn: Microsoft’s Partnership with StopNCII

Microsoft has made its stance clear on the existence of deepfake porn on their platform. The company has wiped off over 300,000 non-consensual explicit images from its Bing Image search. Microsoft’s policy whitepaper, published on July 30, has suggested policies to protect Americans from exploitative deepfakes. Additionally, users could use the reporting tool if they find any abusive deepfake material, but Microsoft recognizes that this alone will not curb this practice.

To aid its fight against these deepfakes, Microsoft has partnered with StopNCI. StopNCII which stands for Stop Non-Consensual Intimate Image Abuse, is an organisation created against the spread of such material online. StopNCII makes use of image hashing to protect the victims. Image hashing is the method of employing an algorithm to give a hash value to each specific image that has been uploaded. Copies of the image therefore all contain the same hash value as each other. StopNCII thus shares these hashes with partnered companies to detect and effectively remove the images.

This partnership between the two companies will bring forth a ‘victim-centred’ approach. This will affect the way deepfake detection works on Bing.

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