# Explainable Deepfake Detection Challenge

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.21007 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21007/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 21 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Jul 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [InternVL3.5: Advancing Open-Source Multimodal Models in Versatility, Reasoning, and Efficiency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.18265/) (2025)
- [Explanation in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Social Sciences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.07269/) (2017)
- [FaceForensics++: Learning to Detect Manipulated Facial Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.08971/) (2019)
- [Celeb-DF: A Large-scale Challenging Dataset for DeepFake Forensics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.12962/) (2019)
- [Exposing Deep Fakes Using Inconsistent Head Poses](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.00661/) (2018)
- [DeeperForensics-1.0: A Large-Scale Dataset for Real-World Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.03024/) (2020)
- [Questioning the AI: Informing Design Practices for Explainable AI User Experiences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.02478/) (2020)
- [The Creation and Detection of Deepfakes: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.11138/) (2020)
- [Media Forensics and DeepFakes: an overview](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06564/) (2020)
- [FakeAVCeleb: A Novel Audio-Video Multimodal Deepfake Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05080/) (2021)
- [ForgeryNet: A Versatile Benchmark for Comprehensive Forgery Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.05630/) (2021)
- [SIDA: Social Media Image Deepfake Detection, Localization and Explanation with Large Multimodal Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.04292/) (2024)
- [AV-Deepfake1M: A Large-Scale LLM-Driven Audio-Visual Deepfake Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15308/) (2023)
- [One Explanation Does Not Fit All: The Promise of Interactive Explanations for Machine Learning Transparency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.09734/) (2020)
- [Rethinking Vision-Language Model in Face Forensics: Multi-Modal Interpretable Forged Face Detector](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20188/) (2025)
- [ExDDV: A New Dataset for Explainable Deepfake Detection in Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14421/) (2025)
- [AV-Deepfake1M++: A Large-Scale Audio-Visual Deepfake Benchmark with Real-World Perturbations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.20579/) (2025)
- [Towards Quantitative Evaluation of Explainable AI Methods for Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18649/) (2024)
- [Multiverse Through Deepfakes: The MultiFakeVerse Dataset of Person-Centric Visual and Conceptual Manipulations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.00868/) (2025)
- [TriDF: Evaluating Perception, Detection, and Hallucination for Interpretable DeepFake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.10652/) (2025)
- [From Prediction to Explanation: Multimodal, Explainable, and Interactive Deepfake Detection Framework for Non-Expert Users](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.07596/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Explainable Deepfake Detection with Feature-robust Augmentation and Evidence-grounded Explanation Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.20913/) (2026)
- [MSU Team at the Explainable Deepfake Detection Challenge 2026: Grounded Artifact Evidence for Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.09952/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deepfake detection is moving beyond binary classification decisions toward systems that can also explain the visual evidence supporting those decisions. This transition is important for real-world verification settings, where diverse users need to understand not only whether an image is manipulated, but also why it is considered suspicious. The Explainable Deepfake Detection Challenge at ACM Multimedia 2026 is designed to benchmark this joint capability. Built on XPlainVerse, a million-scale benchmark for explainable deepfake detection, the challenge evaluates methods on image classification and grounded natural-language explanation generation. Participants submit a real/fake label together with two explanations for each image: a detailed complex explanation for technical users and a concise simple explanation for general users. The evaluation combines classification metrics with semantic similarity, simplicity, and intent-aware grounding metrics that assess whether explanations identify the relevant manipulated entities and supporting visual evidence. The methodologies developed through the challenge will contribute to the development of next-generation explainable deepfake detectors. Evaluation script, baseline models, and accompanying code are available on https://github.com/Abhijeet8901/XPlainVerse-ACMChallenge.