Read this: Deepfakes vs democracy

BBC sounds music Radio podcasts hi, I'm Katie razzall, and this is the media show from BBC Radio 4 in New Hampshire getting phone messages from Joe Biden not to take part in last night's presidential primaries except.

It's not actually the president on the line.

How alarm should be be about the potential for deepfakes elections the BBC Zoe kleinman is here along with James Ball from deimos.

Also talking about the world's number one YouTuber Mr beast and why Elon musk's with desperate to get him onto James you Mr beast fan.

So I understand very popular video curing blindness, so I think we have to be in favour of that but I'm not sure I want to watch it.

Ok.

Not your demographic perhaps not all demographic, but let's start anyway with something else the government latest review of the BBC and seasons BBC watching Jake kanter international investigations editor for deadline is here, too.

Hello welcome to the show, what is the mid-term review and what's it found? I can't hear you Jake I think you might be muted apologies for that.

Sorry the the mid-term review is basically the halfway point in the BBC charter the charger is essentially an operating agreement that the BBC hasn't the government that last for I just over a decade and this was an opportunity for the government to check that the governance arrangements at the BBC are operating properly and I think the outcome of this we've got smart and sensible set of reforms there were concerns that the government might use the mid-term review to pray in the charts for make all sorts of changes to the BBC but that hasn't materialised and I think we've actually instead got quite a lot of agreement between the BBC and the government and

I think we can say that because there's been very few leaks on the on the mid-term review of notable things to come out of it and there's going to be legally binding responsibilities for the BBC board oversea complaints handling and Ofcom is going to be given more teeth to look at the BBC's digital services and a particular BBC News website and yet it has it seems become a bit of a political football? What's the culture secretary been saying what's a yet? There? Are two elements today spare is what I've just described which is very sensible smart thoughtful process about the governance regulation and we have the way that it was presented by the government on Monday so Lucy Frazer the culture secretary did a enormous Media round on Monday morning in the EU

Spoke to pretty much every major new showing the country and I think her comments and she said it clearly but there is a reception at the BBC biased and more than that that trust in the BBC's impartiality is appreciating and having looked at this quite closely do not think that that is supported by the fact and what I say the facts.

I mean the facts in the in the government very own policy paper on this.

Can I give you one example of Fraser I think back up her remarks about trust appreciating.

She said that complaints to Ofcom about bias at the BBC had increased last year or or more precisely the proportion of complaints bank partiality had increased so she's right.

Was the year on year increase actually the percentage of patients was higher in 2018 so it's not evidence of mistrust increasing ok, and then you look at that.

I was just going to say like to bring in my belly is also without director of the center for digital journalism and also and Meredith chief executive of the news media Association which represents UK national news publishers you represent to be like the BBC News competitors.

What's your take on the report? Yeah exactly and we represent around 900 titles across the local news me directly say and we've long raise concerns which have been recognised in this mid-term review that the BBC is unfairly competing in the news environment which damaging investment in genuine independent community-based local journalism and what the BBC Mitcham reviews Gateshead doesn't do with government tools to sort of reopen the charts.

But it does satisfy clear direction of travel in terms of Harrogate mini stinking and what the BBC needs to look at and they've been through this process with looking at how they work with the commercial making sure that they are supposed supporting and working with us rather undermining the commercial sector and in a dream scenario for you.

I mean, what would the BBC look like from the perspective of commercial news outlets.

I think we need a much smaller BBC to be frank in I'm not I'm not saying no website but certainly do The Newsroom of today which all of my numbers competing is a virtual one.

It's an online marketplace if the BBC launch to print newspaper and put a free to pick up.

Copy of the news on every new stand in the country.

I think people would write your house question that's essentially what we've got in the marketplace and we need to cut a on the BBC show the Independent journalism and there are many challenges facing traditional news publishers.

Platforms and search engines not the BBC that are threatening local news business models and everything it does and that space has to be proved by Ofcom every action at the BBC taking the old is there a beta review publishers particularly across the UK at rollout and expansion of local news that BBC is currently undertaken by cutting it too much love investment in local radio in exchange for are online written beautiful if that was in print that wouldn't be allowed and I don't think anyone would accept it the BBC is a problem in terms of propensity for consumers to pay for news.

We need people to subscribe to websites when a significant chunk of content is available taxpayer-funded to the user and fast loading website and it's advertising free that plastic and Pete and reduced and all studies show the UK market at the lowest intensity to pay for news on this needs to be much more transparent.

It's making changes to its local services and I can just got a really good point there.

I think clearly the BBC's been falling short of that do I think the BBC should be getting out of local news and services? I think that's a big question we know that licence for a hugely Valley the local services.

We know.

It's a big priority at director-general Tim Davie and no that is a priority the government that the BBC is far less london-centric also say that you know the point that local press across the world challenge is driven by the internet search engine traffic evening countries where there isn't the equivalent of the BBC said they would say this isn't about the bell.

I wonder if you would give us your perspective and where you sit across the Atlantic yeah.

I mean we just coming out by step of stating week here for journalism.

We have met officer at the la times on the west coast we've had layoffs at Washington Post on the East Coast

You have three or four long-standing news operation Sports Illustrated the biggest astrophe if the BBC pulled back in line with the desire of the publishers Association because there is nothing to suggest that the UK market would be in any way helped by that happening.

I think it would just do really diminish public interest in the news the BBC's always helped.

I think other publishers cheap news if you like to the relevant to the public either.

I think if you look at the States you would really hesitate to cut back on UK local BBC last one to you the BBC has a good partnership with commercial publishers to the local democracy reporting scheme.

This is something that should be.

Weather investigate further develop and modernise works for both of BBC and commercial publishers, so we can continue to provide a service to readers and communities up and down the country and that's ultimately what about we need to have a the symbol situation which allows commercial publishers who are champions for the local area campaign for local causes champion local charities and trusts supporting students.

I don't think she wants to get into that stays so they need to work with the commercial sector so we can all have a shed sustainable future and that she mentioned is a licence fee funded scheme by the term for Janice in the commercial sector in commercial using thank you so much for coming on the program today and goodbye because we're turning now to AI which is constantly news in a how it's going to revolutionise every aspect of our lives.

We also hear about the dangers and in particular the Threat day.

I might post a democracy.

There are lots of elections taking place this year.

Play this which voted the New Hampshire where the presidential primaries been taking place received on their phones Donald Trump again to November Tuesday but not what do we know about this clip Zoe kleinman technology editor at the BBC I think it's more alarming is what we don't know we don't know who created the we believe it was there an AI generated voice by Dan it's it's kind of both good and not good.

I think he start by saying what a bunch of malarkey in this recording which is something that Biden says but he goes on to to urge the people that he's robo calling to not vote in the primary save their votes for November now us elections is incredibly complicated isn't it? But basically you don't get 1 votes right so it's completely wrong to suggest that people right now.

Then won't be able to vote for the big presidential finale.

November and it was a cool that believed to have made been made to between 5 and 25000 people we know that and we know that he that the voice gave the of the real number of a real woman who is running a pro Biden campaign we know that because she started getting inundated with phone calls.

It is a signal isn't of how AI is going to be used in Crete to generate miss information and spread it at perhaps of the level.

You haven't seen before we've just had the world economic forum take place in Davos and they released a report saying they ranked a I created this information is a threat to society than climate change war and the economy in the next two years and campaigns are these matters already been referred to the New Hampshire attorney general and the campaign is actively discussing additional actions to Zoe here in the UK we also had fake footage of Keir starmer and said he can't what kind of impact do you think these these things have I mean that is the huge question is?

Convincing easy is it good enough to change people's opinion to change the way they vote to checked it to help to spread this message and we know the AI deepfakes have awful.

Lot better.

They used to be little towels right so it an AI generated voice you wouldn't hear somebody take a breath now.

It's not for me listen out for but actually when you're listening to somebody speak if you don't hear them breed for a certain period of time they might be dead exactly but that doesn't that doesn't happen anymore that coming into with deepfake video used to be that the the images didn't blink again not something you might think about when somebody doesn't look for I'm quite weird at that's also got better as well.

So I'm making them all human exactly much more human and much more convincing and I think you know the real worry is if you were watching it very clear you might spot a fake you know if you're listening to something in the car and you've got the kids and you're going to school and everything's allowed in your not really concentrating you might not notice that what you're hearing isn't quite what you think it is and as you.

Half the world is going to be voting in an election of some sort this year and we know that there are lots of players out that he wants to manipulate and influence the results of those elections for James Ball you here because yesterday demos the cross-party thinktank published a report of yours all about the potential impact of AI on election so you are perfect person here to tell us about your report first of all so what is actually for once MPs in the public acquire lined you know MPs are in touch with the public on this issue.

We did some research with Cavendish with you and found that when it came to worrying about the impact of AI on misinformation and disinformation during election 70% of a are worried 75% of the public but also on accountability if it comes to political parties having to disclose, how they use AI when they've used it in a video how they might be using it for targeting or behind the

65% of MPs agree, they should be transparent and accountable and the public support it even more 78% so one thing think about is actually there is some consensus.

You know we should take this seriously we should effect it what we found something more broadly was there's a case of looking at the election this year and looking out the future and for the election this year.

They are really the same game as General misinformation.

It's makes it easier to produce.

It makes it faster easier to spread it if you wanted to have an authentic accounts retweeting and reposting things you can set them up more easily, but does not really some huge new technological breakthrough and given that does not really time to legislate the election is probably atmos.on subway our call at demos was because we like to build a better consensus across party.

Is that we think even if the politicians that the parties are going to have a very bitter election campaign.

Degree your kind of voluntary code for how values AI and how we use information because one of the big dangers of AI is people lose all trust in all messaging and that's not empowering and that's not good for trust and I actually worried that you know the dabbous report the weather report putting at the number one risk of the world starts to get a bit sky is falling trust no one what's important is we learn how to discern information and learn what worth trusting are what isn't nothing we're in trouble science at the University of Notre Dame Indiana and also have a new book a history of fake things on the internet welcome Walter I know you take the Long View about these technologies in your book.

So how do you say that we've been here before the history of these technologies and it's normally a story just about AI Technologies

Photoshop used to talk about media being so surprised that was the primary concern with misinformation now.

It's being faked and you can go all the way back to the 19th century with film photography very quickly after the camera.

I darken technicians figure out how to manipulate photographs and highly realistic ways and this debate is found in the news in the nineteenth century as well.

So you don't think do you there's a paradigm shift in the fact that these items can be just so convincing to the example of Biden call thing is interesting areas.

Did you really need an AI to do it? You could have a voice impersonator at 10 to do the same thing right eye doesn't really change the strategy technology that can be plugged in to do it.

Ok? I mean one of the things you are doing the book is that Communities of people are actually quite small and together.

They are very good at spotting fake information.

What about messages sent to individuals by phone messages or telegram or WhatsApp I think I was just picking up on the last question with the previous gas.

There is a matter of trust here.

I think a lot of the analysis about the effectiveness of this information is seems that there are people out there on the internet that you're alone.

They are information and they're not asking anybody else about it that seems very wrong it specially when we're looking at this information is associated with major public figure is the president of United States and there is so much evidence to the contrary and you talk to people all the time seems kinda strange if you think you know this deepfake.

I don't realise the deepfake is very compelling but no one around you talking about it.

It's not in the news.

Why is that the case you know these things with debunk quite rapidly take something around since 2017 and we had a really seen one.

That has created any sort of crisis as far as anybody can tell me a really good one hour that we've all been followed by but I'm sceptical town centre of digital journalism.

Just to bring you back is the biggest threat to democracy actually sloppy journalism a video went viral efficiency apparently laugh again remember the public last week and it turned out it wasn't the full story but I think you know I don't think that I think we've always had this making mistakes.

I think it's important that they correct mistakes much bigger.

Threat is either government's take control if you like other means of messaging but also you know look at the intermediate is so if you look on Google this morning even though the story about machine that have actually been pretty faithfully reported by the BBC Symphony No it from the top 20 results that you get through the intermediary and I think that there is something happening here which is the mass of production of

Content around elections which is actually what I is.

Probably going to have the biggest of contributing effect and how that subtly changes people's perceptions like what's the stolen we have we saw this in 2020 and I think the short-term you have to make some agreements about how you going to use this long-term.

I think it is going to be significantly changed political campaigning but not in the way that we perhaps understand it at the moment.

Thanks and James from Thomas and you think of an example of a positive use of this technology when it comes to elections it's I'm in the railways that could be used positively, but they are often the same way it could be used negatively so it's hard think that by the next time we have an election you could have a conversation with the candidate and the issue is depending who makes that model of the candidate and it could be a video.

You know it could be as real as the chat.

We're having now if it's made by their party and gives their actual views it gives you a chance about her to get into what they care about it might be made the opposition who saw the pics all the gas and put anything they can just about to go to a real Berlin force you also you may well see lots and lots of very clever and sophisticated AI targeting and so you won't see it, but you might just get a message.

So they've sent to you that actually just happened to touch on in a short easy solve this thing may be tailored to whether you like a written thing or audio or video on your key issues that information is accurate is that kind of targeted bad if it's picking from the policies that they really and target at you.

That's good.

If it's using it so that you don't know or to push dodgy messages.

It's bad because we know that bad messaging can stick even if one video.

You know if you look at how many Americans are not sure where a barber was born or where they Hillary committed crimes or all sorts of other things you can have these things stick and catch up be on this year.

We are going to have to look at legislation at regulators and a process for how we get the goods and how we control the bed Indiana just just suggest that things aren't as bad.

We can we can look to the past and think that we shouldn't be as well.

Thank you so much water for coming on the program, but before we end the show I do want to talk about a couple of more things in and use the media news this week this time from the world of entertainment Mr beast possibly the world's most popular YouTuber he's got 234 million subscribers, Mr beast has been down with Elon musk's access platform to see how much money he can make and Netflix on a massive deal to win the TV rights to WWE wrestling and that start with Mr beast Zoe and tell us all about him, but

A little bit first the most expensive cars in the world we got over 215 million billion dollars that was from when I masturbate famously big-budget stunts which two huge numbers on YouTube be posted on Xbox previously called Twitter to see how much revenue can make from that.

What was the verdict he made about £200,000 in the end of this video I have to say when I said it to my children.

I'm going to be talking about Mr beast.

I usually low level in interested me some of these bikes because Mr beast is a big as you say he's got hundreds of millions of subscribers.

He makes these incredibly high value production videos and they do extraordinarily well now.

He has always said that he wouldn't bother.

Adding a video on x formerly Twitter rather than YouTube because he just didn't think he would make enough money to make it worse as well.

He says that he reinvest all of the money he get into his videos and therefore he needs money but he did decide to try this is an experiment and it seems to have worked at all right now by his own admission.

This is skewed right.

He's got 27 million as a fraction of his YouTube followers however, they were so much m interest in it that a lot of attention and drove a lot of Branston want to advertise on it.

So it's it's not something that I think your average Creator on x to expect ok mate says Emily bell the Beast does feel a little bit for a Vespa hats but Elon musk's need an enormous needs him to turn this platform around presumably.

What's it like that mistake we have to make here in the legacy mean to actually taking of saying these things off someone on the other hand it's not just that Amazon won't make with Mr Bean these brands which are actually just keep their own people Mr beast house 250 people in his organisation are actually wear streaming service is mainstream Media what we might knows me the mainstream media are looking to lift them because they are actually a nice undergraduates who was all very excited like my name to whole series of perhaps in a media Brands that we would know a lot of them and never heard of them and I think that that's the real flip which is happening in the media business at the moment.

You need to understand.

This is not marginal.

This is actually a lot of the business is going.

Story this week was Netflix's latest financial set of figures they've announced that subscribers are growing faster than predicted the stock to the record high and they done a huge deal for wrestling tell us about all that yeah.

Well.

I think we've seen is the emergence of Netflix as the winner of the stream was and Child on 30 million subscribers in 3 months of 2023 and has 260 million members well why this deal with WWE is really fascinating they've taken the rights to Monday Night Raw in the US and outside of the US that basically taking the right step all of the WWE franchises so that means the right situation will change in the UK WWE currently broadcast on TNT sports Netflix's previously issued sport WWE is a bit different.

It's all part Sports parts soap opera.

Entertainment show and I think it makes a huge amount of sense for Netflix to be buying up these rights and live events and our big thing for Netflix and where they weren't in the past.

Yeah, they certainly getting into the minimum straight away, so they have they took the rights to the sag Awards which is a big Hollywood event.

There's been all talk about them getting involved in the Golden Globes and I do think that will see a continuation of that Netflix wants to crazy moments where can bring people together around at the same time much like a traditional broadcasting likes a head turned off last about this Adam Netflix this week and he said he listens to you can support more in Centertainment I think that's how we put it.

Yes, I'm in and sports entertainment is WWE scripted but yeah, you're seeing tremendous athletes to their thing in.

Am I started the Show by talking about the future of the BBC we all did should Tim Davie the director-general be worried about Netflix and their live event strategy and they would have been came for example good day.

I think I'll always be worried about my right situation and making sure that was due best her to please the the various organisations that work with do I think that a big American companies will be looking at Glastonbury and saying that's interesting that could work for us as a as a big set-piece absolutely but also I think the BBC does Glastonbury brilliantly and I think that Michael and Emily Eavis appreciate the fact that the BBC is is to bring the nation together in a way that perhaps are there organisations.

Just not at the moment ok, so expecting to be at Glastonbury again.

That's good to hear.

Thanks.

Jake kanter.

Thanks everybody for list.

Please show I'm afraid that is all we've got time for I'd like to thank our guests as I said Jake kanter deadline magazine Emily bell from the town centre for digital journalism Zoe kleinman the BBC technology had a search James born from an earlier.

We heard from all that out from the University of Notre-Dame Notre-Dame and Owen Meredith from the news media Association goodbye.