It’s not TikTok, it’s a Chinese app

that’s making the world a mess

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – It turns out that there is an application from China that can make the world enter the era of massive misinformation. Not TikTok, but a video editing app called CapCut.

In fact, so far TikTok has faced criticism from the United States (US) government because it was accused of endangering national security. Meanwhile, CapCut itself is an editing platform under TikTok which is also managed by ByteDance from China.

According to Microsoft’s report, CapCut is able to create videos with misleading information generated with the help of an artificial intelligence (AI) system.

One of them was used by the Chinese government to target Taiwan’s elections. They use disinformation content such as fake news anchors or TV presenters.

One of the video clips cited by Microsoft shows the presenter claiming candidate Lai Ching-te has a number of illegitimate children.

General manager of Microsoft’s threat analysis center, Clint Watts, explained the Chinese government’s use of synthetic news in the local media market. It’s possible that China perfected that format.

CapCut as a third-party platform has a news anchor template format. Watts also said China wants to include AI in the systems it builds.

“The Chinese are focused on inserting AI into the system, propaganda and disinformation, they are moving quickly. Trying everything,” said Watts, quoted by The Guardian, Monday (20/5/2024).

Meanwhile, other clips show presenters and influencers who appear to be speaking directly to the camera. Another video shows AI making the presenter blonde and accusing the US and India of selling weapons to Myanmar.

It seems that the country’s regulations requiring adding watermarks to AI-generated content will also not be effective. Assistant professor from George Washington University, Jeffrey Ding, questioned how the law would be enforced if the video in question was linked to state propaganda.

SOURCE : CNBC INDONESIA