DESIGNING A GAMIFIED APPLICATION TO ENHANCE DEEPFAKE AWARENESS BY ADOLESCENTS ON TIKTOK

Abstract

Deepfakes, while a pretty novel technology, have been spreading fast since the possibilities have been recognized. Deepfakes can be used for good, for instance for dubbingmovies are for animations, but they can also be used for bad, for instance for cyberbullying, misleading information, and revenge porn. Evenmore, according to a survey completed in Australia, 1 in 5 Australians between the ages of 16 and 49 have been subjected to Image-based abuse, according to the researcher that amount will be even higher in reality.
Most countermeasures to help to contain the risks of deepfakes is situated in the field of legislation and technology, e.i. AI algorithms to recognize deepfakes. However, the risks seem to be underestimated a little. For instance, in a survey conducted in the UK, 72% of the respondents did not knowwhat deepfakeswere and even after knowingwhat theywere, only approximately 25% saw the risks of the technology.
Almost every study on the mitigation of fake news, mentions education and making people aware of the risks as an important method toweaponize a person against this threat. However, it seems that this finding rarely is studied on its own, let alone with minors in mind.
That is exactly what is tried with this research project; with the help of a gamified application (Deepfaked) trying to make adolescents aware of deepfakes and their threats to their perception of reality. Extensive use was made of a framework specially designed to tackle cyber security issues, namely COFELET. Moreover, COFELET was especially interesting because it comprises all aspects of learning theories like the Activity Theory and Bloom’s Taxonomy in its framework. COFELET was designed in 2021 as part of a PhD thesis by the Greek scholar Menelaos N. Katsantonis.
This thesis discusses the process of how this gamified application came to be, and how effective itwas in its intention. After outlining what already had been studied on the subject of deepfakes and gamification, the newfound knowledge was applied to the design and development of a new application called Deepfaked, following theDesign Science Research methodology.
Seven respondents completed a pre- and post-survey and played the application to test its intention, namely, making adolescents more aware of deepfakes. Survey results show that at least in part the application completes its intention, but that more work has to be done, especially on the side of entertainment.

Date of Award	18 Dec 2023
Original language	English
Supervisor	Clara Maathuis (Examiner) & Ebrahim Rahimi (Co-assessor)