Online trolls exploit Frisco high school stabbing with deepfake videos
Online trolls and race baiters have seized on the tragic stabbing at a Frisco high school track meet, spreading misinformation online and creating AI-generated deepfake videos.
In one AI-generated video posted to Instagram this week, a clip of CBS News Texas anchor Doug Dunbar was manipulated to make it appear as though he said something he didn't. The video also used AI to create an entirely fake video image of the suspect Karmelo Anthony with a knife in his hand.
The CBS News Confirm team said it's unclear just how many people saw this video, but it was reposted on multiple accounts. The original post on Instagram has now been taken down.
Investigating deepfake technology
For over a year, the CBS News Texas I-Team has been investigating the technology behind deepfake videos. Professor Christopher Meerdo at the University of North Texas in Denton told the I-Team in a 2024 interview that advances in technology are making it easier to create deepfakes. In fact, one can be made with just a single still image.
"These videos are going to get exponentially better," Meerdo said. "The advances in artificial intelligence, it's moving so quickly that it is going to get more convincing, and they are going to need smaller data sets to make really accurate things."
Social media companies and misinformation
Earlier this year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the end of the use of fact-checkers on their platforms, Facebook and Instagram, relying instead on users to flag misinformation through a feature called Community Notes, similar to what Elon Musk's social platform X uses.
Dr. Daxton "Chip" Stewart, a journalism professor at Texas Christian University specializing in social media and free speech, explained that while the spread of disinformation online isn't new, recent changes by Meta have, in his opinion, exacerbated the problem.