China is planning to regulate content providers that tweak facial and voice data, according to draft rules outlined by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). The rules call for "deep synthesis service providers and users of deep synthesis services" to respect social ethics, adhere to the "correct political direction" and not disturb public order. The agency has invited people to share their feedback by February 28, 2022. The rules refer to "deep synthesis" as the technology of producing text, images, audio, video, virtual scenes and other information using algorithms represented by deep learning and virtual reality. They will cover the following technologies: Text generation, text style conversion, question and answer dialogue to generate or edit text content; Text-to-voice, voice conversion, voice attribute editing, etc. to generate or edit voice content; Music generation, scene sound editing, etc., to generate or edit non-voice content; Face generation, face replacement, character attribute editing, face control, and posture control to generate or edit faces and other biological features in images and video content; Image enhancement and image repair for editing non-biological characteristics of images and video content; Three-dimensional reconstruction for generating or editing virtual scenes. This may be the first time that a country has attempted to address the problem of “deep fakes” which has become rampant in the last few years. The rules can also be interpreted as another step towards increasing oversight of the country’s tech companies and keeping them in check. Responsibilities of businesses Authenticate users: Service providers can only provide their services…
