Deepfakes and Beauty Standards

Name:

Date:

Reading: Deepfakes and Beauty Standards

Learning intention: We are learning how deepfakes are made, how edited images can affect young people, and how to spot possible signs of editing.

Success criteria: I can explain what a deepfake is, describe how AI creates one, identify its possible effects, and recognise signs of digital editing.

A deepfake is an image, video or audio recording that has been digitally changed to make someone appear to say or do something that did not really happen. The result may look or sound realistic, but it is not necessarily true.

Deepfakes are created using artificial intelligence (AI). A type of AI called deep learning studies many examples of a person’s face, voice or movements. It learns patterns from these examples and uses them to produce or change content. For example, it may place one person’s face onto another person’s body, change facial expressions or copy a person’s voice.

AI-edited beauty images can affect young people, especially when they appear repeatedly on social media. Filters may smooth skin, enlarge eyes, reshape faces or make bodies look taller and thinner. When these images are presented as normal, viewers may compare their real appearance with an unrealistic digital version. This can lower confidence and make narrow beauty standards seem more common or expected than they really are.

There are clues that an image or video may have been edited. Look for blurry edges around hair or ears, unusual lighting or shadows, strange teeth or hands, and facial movements that seem stiff. In videos, the mouth may not match the words or the person may blink unnaturally. Audio may contain robotic speech, odd pauses or sudden changes in background sound. These signs do not prove that something is a deepfake, but they show that the content should be examined carefully.

Reading Comprehension

Part A: Retrieval

1. What is a deepfake?

2. What type of AI studies examples of a person’s face, voice or movements?

3. Name two things that AI may change when creating a deepfake.

4. Identify two ways that beauty filters can change a person’s appearance.

5. Give two visual or audio signs that content may have been edited.

Part B: Inference

6. Why might a deepfake be difficult to recognise?

7. How could repeated exposure to edited beauty images affect a young person’s body image?

8. Why can social media make one narrow beauty standard seem normal?

9. Why do signs of editing not prove that an image or video is a deepfake?

Part C: Vocabulary in Context

10. In the passage, what does “realistic” most nearly mean?

Looking or sounding real

Being completely harmless

Being easy to create

11. In the passage, what does “narrow” mean in the phrase “narrow beauty standards”?

Accepting only a limited range of appearances

Changing very quickly

Difficult to see online

Part D: Short Response

12. Explain why people should look carefully at digital images and videos before accepting them as true. Use two ideas from the passage.

Teacher Answer Key

1. An image, video or audio recording digitally changed to make someone appear to say or do something that did not happen.

2. Deep learning.

3. Accept: a person’s face, voice, movements or facial expressions.

4. Accept: smoothing skin, enlarging eyes, reshaping faces, or making bodies look taller or thinner.

5. Accept any two: blurry edges, unusual lighting or shadows, strange teeth or hands, stiff movements, incorrect lip-syncing, unnatural blinking, robotic speech, odd pauses, or changing background sound.

6. AI can create content that looks or sounds realistic, making it difficult to distinguish from genuine content.

7. It may cause young people to compare themselves with unrealistic images, lowering confidence or making them feel that their bodies do not meet expected standards.

8. Repeatedly seeing similar edited images can make one appearance seem common, normal or expected.

9. Cameras, microphones and ordinary recordings can also produce mistakes or unusual features.

10. Looking or sounding real.

11. Accepting only a limited range of appearances.

12. Strong answers should explain that deepfakes can look realistic even when they are false, and that edited beauty images can create unrealistic expectations. Answers may also refer to checking visual or audio clues.