We’ve all seen those “deep fake” Faceapp videos where our friends have dropped their faces onto the heads of big Hollywood stars like John Depp, Julia Roberts, Audrey Hepburn, and more. They are somewhat funny and mildly disturbing, usually all in harmless fun.
More often than not, you can quickly identify a deepfake video. There is usually something that gives it away, the background looks altered, or there are odd animation and movement of the subject. However, when the technology first made headlines, right after the 2016 election, many security experts saw it as no laughing matter. They were alarmed by it, warning that today, what is just a novelty app could be advanced to a level where such videos could perhaps falsely implicate someone in a compromising position or frame them for criminal activity.
So many people on Facebook have tried Faceapp and think of it all as just fun and games. However, many of them were recently left shook after a TikTok video of an identical, but fake Tom Cruise went viral and racked up over 11 million views in one day!
When I first saw the TikTok videos under the account name @deeptomcruise/TikTok, I assumed it was actor Tom Cruise’s actual account. As reported in the NYPost,
A series of “deepfake” videos of the “Mission: Impossible” star has been seen more than 11 million times by Tuesday — with experts deeming them the most alarmingly lifelike examples so far of the high-tech hoax.
The videos of “Cruise” emerged on TikTok last week, starting with one claiming to be the 58-year-old actor practicing his golf swing.
There are four different deepfake Tom Cruise videos posted with seamless execution. Each one will freak you out more than the previous. But for me, it’s not the unbelieved realistic representation of Cruise that scares me; it’s the fact that this hoax is so perfect that even Cruise himself would think it was him. The person doing the impersonation is to be commended for the action and even having the mannerisms and voice, though I wondered if the voice is dubbed from Tom Cruise’s movies?
The most unsettling part is the masterful impression of Tom Cruise’s Orpah-couch-jumping maniacal laugh at the end of the most convincing video, at which point the man portraying fake Cruise says,
“If you like what you’re seeing, just wait ’til what’s coming next.”
I can’t help but thinking it’s a ll a big prank right now and this is actually Tom punking the public but I’m already so stunned that I shudder at the thought of what “what’s next”. This deepfake is already is just too much! Get freaked out even further – check out the full story at the NYPost
@deeptomcruise Sports!
