Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management, has revealed that the social media network will ban “deepfake” videos and all types of manipulated media that mislead viewers.

“While these videos are still rare on the internet, they present a significant challenge for our industry and society as their use increases,” Bickert said via a blog post on the company’s site.

Videos produced using AI or machine learning that merges or superimposes content to make it seem authentic will be removed from the platform, according to Bickert.

Content edited for clarity and quality will be allowed, as will content that is parody or satire, or video that has been edited solely to omit or change the order of words, Bickert said.

Facebook will be investigating artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content and deceptive behaviours like fake accounts, and plans to partner with academia, government and industry to expose the people behind them.

“This approach is critical to our strategy and one we heard specifically from our conversations with experts.

“If we simply removed all manipulated videos flagged by fact-checkers as false, the videos would still be available elsewhere on the internet or social media ecosystem. By leaving them up and labelling them as false, we’re providing people with important information and context.”

If the video meets the two following criteria it will be removed from both Facebook and Instagram.

• “It has been edited or synthesised…in ways that aren’t apparent to an average person and would likely mislead someone into thinking that a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say.”
• “It is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning that merges, replaces or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic.”

Critics have been quick to highlight that the policy does not cover “shallow fakes”, which are videos edited using more common place editing tools and can be equally misleading.

Previously, Facebook has come under fire for allowing doctored videos on its platform. A notable example is a video that seemed to show House speaker Nancy Pelosi slurring her speech. The video was spread by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The new policy also has a loophole that allows content that breaks the company’s other rules to remain online if it is deemed “newsworthy”.

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Last September, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs and communications said of the policy: “From now on we will treat speech from politicians as newsworthy content that should, as a general rule, be seen and heard.”

This means that even doctored footage, deliberately made to mislead viewers, could be allowed to remain online. However, the company has made recent efforts to curb the proliferation of deepfakes on its site.

Last year it launched the Deep Fake Detection Challenge and partnered with Reuters to help newsrooms worldwide identify deepfakes and manipulated media through a free online training course.