A YOLO enhanced deep learning model for efficient and scalable deepfake detection for real-time facial forgery recognition in digital media

Deep fake technology has significantly advanced the creation of synthetic images and videos, sparking widespread concerns about its potential misuse in spreading misinformation, violating privacy, and enabling identity theft. As these manipulations be-come increasingly sophisticated, the development of reliable detection methods has become a pressing necessity. This research tackles this challenge by proposing a robust deep fake detection pipeline, leveraging a custom dataset created using Roboflow. The dataset is divided into two primary classes: real and fake, with the fake class further categorized into three subtypes based on complexity: easy fake, mid fake, and hard fake. Easy fake images involve basic manipulations that are easily identifiable by the human eye, while mid fake images combine AI-generated and human-generated elements, and hard fake images are entirely AI-generated, posing significant challenges for detection. To ensure authenticity and diversity, real images were collected from personal networks and online repositories. We trained and evaluated four YOLO-based models YOLOv8, YOLOv9, YOLOv10, and YOLOv11 for the detection task. YOLOv8 emerged as the top-performing model, achieving an accuracy of 96.2% in distinguishing between real and fake images. Finally, addressing ethical considerations and developing countermeasures to mitigate the societal impact of deep fakes should remain a priority for future research.