Examining Fox’s Deepfake Detection: A Blockchain-Based Tool Trial

• Fox Corp. Introduces Verify, A Blockchain-based Media Authenticity Tool
• Why Verify Matters
• Technology behind Verify
• Exploring Verify
• The Consumer Experience with Verify
• Technical Limitations of Verify
• Verify's Potential for Publishers

Fox Corp. Introduces Verify, A Blockchain-based Media Authenticity Tool

Causing a stir in the media sphere on Tuesday, Fox Corp. declared its launch of Verify, an innovative blockchain-based instrument designed for certifying the genuineness of digital media content in the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This project seeks to address the growing concerns surrounding the ease of generating deepfake content through AI and the unauthorized use of publishers' content for training AI models.

Why Verify Matters

While it may appear to some as a grand publicity stunt, incorporating buzzwords such as AI and Blockchain to boost trust in news, the seriousness of Fox's new tool Verify cannot be disregarded. On the deep-fake front, Fox claims that users can input URLs and images into the Verify system to establish their authenticity, implying the content has been added to the Verify database by a publisher. Additionally, AI companies can use the Verify database to access (and pay for) content in a compliant manner.

Technology behind Verify

Blockchain Creative Labs, Fox's technology division, collaborated with Polygon$0.967 -3.65%, a high-throughput, low-fee blockchain that operates atop the extensive Ethereum$2,315 -2.42% network, to power the system's backend. Adding new content to Verify essentially involves creating an entry in a database on the Polygon blockchain, where the content's metadata and other information are stored.

Unlike other crypto ventures, the integration of blockchain in this case seems more meaningful, with Polygon allowing content on Verify to have an unchangeable audit trail and ensuring that third-party publishers do not need to rely on Fox to handle their data.

Exploring Verify

In its present form, Verify seems similar to a sophisticated database checker, a straightforward web application using Polygon's technology to monitor images and URLs. However, its value cannot be understated, particularly when aiding traditional publishers in navigating through licensing deals in the large language models world.

The Consumer Experience with Verify

Upon testing Verify's web application with some content, limitations for the consumer use case were quickly identified. While Verify successfully performed as promised, there were complications when it came to identifying the authenticity of content obtained directly from Fox News' website.

Verify suggests that one of its potential user groups could be individuals encountering articles on social media who want to ascertain if the content originated from a claimed source. When faced with this real-world scenario, Verify encountered issues.

Technical Limitations of Verify

Technical issues with the tool are expected to be resolved in due course, however, there are more complex engineering challenges that Fox must address if it aims to aid consumers in distinguishing AI-generated content.

Despite its current functionality, Verify cannot verify whether content was AI-generated; it can only confirm the originates from Fox (or from any other source that might use Verify in the future). This does not address the objective of assisting consumers in differentiating between AI-generated and human-produced content.

Additionally, user apathy could pose a problem. Often, people do not show concern about the truthfulness of what they read, especially when the content aligns with their beliefs. For Verify to be beneficial for consumers, it would ideally need to be integrated directly into content viewing tools such as web browsers and social media platforms.

Verify's Potential for Publishers

While it seems unfair to criticize this early version of Verify, it is important to note that Fox has actively labeled it as a beta version. The company's focus is not solely on general media consumers.

Verify is designed to establish a technical bridge between media companies and AI platforms, creating new commercial opportunities for content owners by using smart contracts to set programmatic conditions for content access. The specifics here are somewhat vague, however, the idea seems to be that Verify will act as a global database for AI platforms that scour the web for news content. This provides a means for AI platforms to confirm authenticity and for publishers to guard their content behind licensing restrictions and paywalls.

For this to function, a significant number of publishers and AI companies would need to buy into Verify. Currently, the database contains around 90,000 articles from Fox-owned publishers, including Fox News and Fox Sports. Fox has also opened the doors for other publishers to add content to the Verify database and has open-sourced its code for those who wish to build new platforms based on its technology.

In light of recent legal issues publishers and AI companies are currently dealing with, Verify's licensing case seems like a solid idea. For example, the New York Times recently filed a

Edited by Jonathan Stoker