How do deepfakes trick our perception and spread misinformation?

Deepfakes use tricks to make fake videos look real, so people believe things that aren’t true.

Imagine you have a toy robot that can move its arms and say words, but it’s not really talking. It's just playing a recording. That's kind of like what deepfakes do, but with people on video. They use special computer tools to change someone’s face or voice in a video, so they look like they’re saying things they never actually said.

Think about drawing a picture, you can erase parts and redraw them. Deepfakes are like that, but with videos. The computer looks at many pictures of the person's face and learns how it moves. Then it changes the video to make it look like the person is saying new things.

It’s like when you hear a familiar voice on the phone, you might not question who it is. Deepfakes use real voices and faces, so they feel familiar and true, even if they're fake. That's why people can be tricked into believing things that aren't true, like someone saying something they didn’t really say.