Deepfake Fraud Increased: Study of Indonesian Gen Z's Trust and Acceptance toward Deepfake

Abstract— The advancement of technology, especially artificial intelligence and social media, has significantly improved access to information and innovation. However, a growing concern is the misuse of deepfake technology, which allows the creation of highly realistic yet deceptive content that arises fraud and misinformation cases. There are a reported 550% increase of AI misuse in Indonesia and a deepfake scam involving Indonesia’s public figures. Hence, this study aims to explore Indonesian Gen Z’s perceptions and acceptance toward deepfake content on social media and provides recommendations to resilience against deepfake misuse and increasing AI literacy for public education. Data were collected using purposive sampling from Indonesian citizens residing throughout the Jabodetabek area between March and July 2025, overall, responses were gathered from 403 participants in the study. The analysis was carried out using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis with SmartPLS, consisting of seven variables and eight hypotheses. The variables included are Awareness, Credibility, Trust, Perceived Risk, Usefulness, Attitude, and Acceptance. Based on the result, there are seven hypotheses accepted, and one hypothesis is not accepted. This paper found that users’ acceptance is influenced by many layers, from awareness to attitude, and users’ trust toward deepfake is significantly influenced by content credibility. While perceived risk does not affect users’ trust. Keywords—deepfake, artificial intelligence, trust, acceptance, social media, fraud.