On November 9 and November 16, 2021, counsel Matthew F. Ferraro co-taught a two-part class on “Deepfake Audio & Video: Identifying Concerns for the Courtroom” to roughly 150 Pennsylvania judges as part of the Pennsylvania courts’ continuing judicial education program. The program was a collaboration between the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts Judicial Education Department and the Thomas R. Kline Center for Continuing Judicial Education of the Duquesne University School of Law.
The class was co-taught by Mr. Ferraro, Riana Pfefferkorn, Research Scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory, and Dr. Paweł Korus, Research Assistant Professor at New York University’s Center for Cybersecurity. The class focused on the technology behind deepfakes, the legal and regulatory landscape governing their use, ethical concerns of the media for lawyers and judges, and broader issues around misinformation and disinformation.
Mr. Ferraro regularly writes, speaks and counsels clients on emerging legal and regulatory issues surrounding disinformation, synthetic media and deepfakes. In March 2021, Mr. Ferraro, partner Jason Chipman and author Nina Schick discussed deepfakes and disinformation in an episode of the firm’s podcast, In the Public Interest.