Amid Rising Deepfake Videos on Social Media, New regulations to tackle Deepfakes soon
Deepfakes refer to synthetic or doctored media that is digitally manipulated and altered to convincingly misrepresent or impersonate someone using a form of artificial intelligence, or AI.
New Delhi: India will crack down on AI-generated deepfakes and misinformation armed with a new regulation that could allow for financial penalties on creators as well as social media platforms enabling the proliferation of such malicious content.
The government and other stakeholders will draw up actionable items in 10 days on ways to detect deepfakes, prevent their uploading and viral sharing, and strengthen the reporting mechanism for such content, thus allowing citizens recourse against AI-generated harmful content on the internet, Union information technology and telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
“Deepfakes have emerged as a new threat to democracy. Deepfakes weaken trust in the society and its institutions,” the minister said.
- Identifying deepfakes
- Preventing the viral spread
- Provisions for filing complaints
- Precautions to prevent side effects
Vaishnaw said the regulation could also include financial penalties. “When we do the regulation, we have to be looking at the penalty, both on the person who has uploaded or created as well as the platform,” he said.
The minister met with representatives from the technology industry, including from Meta, Google, and Amazon, on Thursday for their inputs on handling deepfake content.
“The use of social media ensures that defects can spread significantly more rapidly without any checks, and they are getting viral within a few minutes of their uploading. That’s why we need to take very urgent steps to strengthen trust in the society to protect our democracy,” he said.
Vaishnaw insisted that social media platforms need to be more proactive considering that the damage caused by deepfake content can be immediate, and even a slightly delayed response may not be effective.
