Rubio: Deepfake videos threaten national security

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senator Marco Rubio cautioned against the danger posed by deepfake videos making their way into the daily news and the damage they could cause to U.S. elections.

While the Russians did not use the technology during the 2016 election meddling, Rubio said they did employ Twitter bots and other measures ‘that will increasingly come to light.”

Deepfake is a technology that allows creation of videos of people saying or doing things they, in fact, did not.

Sen. Rubio fears that newsrooms would be caught up having to make a tough call, if they uncover one of these.

“I think the likely outcome would be that they run the video, with a quotation at the end saying, by the way, we contacted senator so-and-so and they denied that that was them. But the vast majority of the people watching that image on television are going to believe it,” said Rubio at a forum for the Heritage Foundation in D.C.

The Florida Republican said a nation state could have the capability “to weaponize an instrument of that nature and use it to create and sow chaos in a country.”