Deepfakes: Trust, Threats, Controls

This unit examines how deepfakes exploit social trust and the role of large technology platforms and other actors in amplifying the crisis. Students evaluate the broader societal and business impacts, and design layered prevention and real‑time response strategies (including inject–measure–verify testing and kill‑switch concepts) that prepare organizations for policy and implementation work in the following unit.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze how cognitive biases and social trust dynamics enable deepfakes to succeed in business and leadership contexts, and identify specific vulnerabilities in organizational information flows
• Evaluate the roles, responsibilities, and limitations of major technology platforms and other stakeholders in the deepfake crisis, comparing current mitigation approaches and regulatory gaps
• Design a layered prevention and response plan for a defined business scenario that integrates technical controls (authentication, detection, real‑time kill switches), operational practices, and governance measures to reduce deepfake risk
• Apply an inject–measure–verify testing framework to simulate deepfake incidents, measure control effectiveness, and recommend iterative improvements informed by analog safety lessons such as SawStop