Just read that a deepfake of a Ukrainian mayor in 2023 caused a real stock market dip

I was scrolling through a tech news site from Berlin and saw a piece about a deepfake video of a Ukrainian mayor announcing a fake emergency. The report said it was linked to a 2% drop in a local stock index before anyone figured out it was fake. On one hand, it shows how these fakes can cause real financial harm in minutes. On the other, maybe it forces us to double-check sources before panicking. Has anyone else seen a deepfake that had a clear, measurable real-world effect like that?

4 comments

4 Comments

marydavis3mo ago

Goodness, that is a frightening example. I've started using a simple two-step check for anything that could move markets. First, I look for the same news on at least two major, old-school wire services like Reuters or AP. Second, I wait ten minutes before reacting. That short delay is almost always enough time for a denial to surface if it's fake.

jana8813mo ago

Wow, that's wild but not totally surprising. I saw a deepfake of a CEO "resigning" last year that briefly tanked his company's stock. The key for me was checking the official company social media accounts immediately, they hadn't posted anything, so I knew it was probably fake. It made me set up alerts for any big news from sources I actually trust.

blairc903mo ago

Seriously good point about checking the official accounts first. How do you actually set up those alerts for trusted sources? I tried once but got flooded with junk from random news sites. Is there a trick to filtering it so you only get the real company posts?

dixon.james1mo ago

Yeah, that junk flood is the worst, isn't it? I had the same problem with Google Alerts. What finally worked for me was making my search terms super specific. Instead of just "Company Name," I'd set it to "Company Name announces" or "from:CompanyTwitterHandle" if the alert tool lets you do that. It cuts out a lot of the blog spam and random news sites just rehashing old stories. You still have to check it's the real account, but it's way less noise.