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Gender-Specific Public Perceptions of the Problem of Deepfake Technology and Support for Regulatory Policies under the Influence of Presumed Influence

Author(s)

Can Jin

Affiliation(s)

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2050, Australia

Abstract

With the rapid development of deepfakes, the potential threat to social trust, information authenticity and personal privacy has attracted attention. Baudrillard (1983) noted the increasingly visible transformation of versions of reality through simulation and mediated reproduction and warned that hyperreality could become indistinguishable from the reality of human existence. Deepfake increases the difficulty of distinguishing reality from the real thing. Little is known about the generative adversarial networks used to manipulate videos in deepfakes, but the media is full of reports of malicious uses of "deepfakes". The public's knowledge of deepfake technology basically comes from the media and others, so the public and their support for regulatory policies may be affected by the influence of others and the media. Based on the theoretical model of The Influence of Presumed Influence (IPMI), this study will explore how the public of different genders perceive the impact of deepfake technology and how this cognition affects the public's support for relevant regulatory policies, starting from the harmfulness of deepfake technology. The study uses a questionnaire survey method to analyze the risk perception, media influence, and policy support of the public of different genders regarding deepfake technology. It is found that women are more likely to believe that media content related to deepfakes will hurt other women or the public. Therefore, they will have a sense of risk perception and social responsibility and promote regulatory policies.

Keywords

Deepfake; The Influence of Presumed Influence; Gender Differences; Policy Support

References

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