Deepfake video: Government Issue Advisory To Social Media Platforms

As the AI-powered deepfake videos create privacy concerns and trigger debate about the rise of deepfake video cases, Ministry of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has been engaged in deliberations with social media intermediaries – digital and social media platforms – for the past few days to prevent such cases. As a culmination of the meetings, the IT ministry has issued an advisory to all platforms to comply with the IT rules.

The deepfake videos are the ones that the creator digitally manipulates or alters to misrepresent or impersonate someone.

The official release from the government said: “The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has issued an advisory to all intermediaries, ensuring compliance with the existing IT rules.”

“The content not permitted under the IT Rules, in particular those listed under Rule 3(1)(b) must be communicated to the users in clear and precise language including through its terms of service and user agreements and the same must be expressly informed to the user at the time of first-registration and also as regular reminders, in particular, at every instance of login and while uploading/sharing information onto the platform,” the advisory added.

However, the directive from the ministry comes after many cases, in which deep fake videos of many individuals were circulated on social media. The growing deepfake video has caused misinformation to spread and personal damage to suffer. The videos recently surfaced on social media featuring many leading actors’ deepfake videos and raising concerns about the misuse of AI.

The advisory also stressed that digital platforms should ensure users are educated about penal provisions such as the IPC and the IT Act 2000. The advisory also said the terms of service and the agreements of users should clarify that intermediaries are obliged to report legal violations to the authorities under relevant Indian laws.

“Rule 3(1)(b) within the due diligence section of the IT rules mandates intermediaries to communicate their rules, regulations, privacy policy, and user agreement in the user”s preferred language,” the advisory further said. Platforms according to the IT law are obliged to ensure reasonable effort to avert users from modifying, posting, publishing, storing and sharing content connected to the 11 specified user harms or content prohibited on the digital platforms.

The advisory is expected to bring relief to vulnerable people from being targeted on social media.