In a year when over four billion people globally are expected to head to the polls, 86 per cent Indians believe that misinformation and harmful deepfakes will impact future elections, reveals the future of trust study for India report by Adobe. The report is based on a survey conducted on over 2,000 Indians about their experience encountering misinformation online and concerns around the impact of generative AI.

The report further highlights that without widespread tools to help them decide whether the online content they are consuming is true, 82 per cent Indians believe that election candidates should be prohibited from using generative AI in their promotional content. However, 94 per cent Indians believe that governments and technology companies should work together to protect election integrity against the detrimental effects of deepfakes and misinformation.

Most Indians consider the credibility of a source before sharing content online but also believe that having the tools and media literacy skills to verify whether a content is true is important as 92 per cent Indians believe that it is essential that they have the right tools to verify if online content is trustworthy.

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In addition to this, 93 per cent Indians agree that it is important to know if the content they are consuming is generated using AI. Concerns regarding misinformation are impacting how people think about its potential effect on children, with 94 per cent Indians saying that children should be taught media literacy skills as part of their school curriculum.

Furthermore, concerns about misinformation are also impacting consumer’s use of social media platforms with 45 per cent Indians saying that they have stopped or curtailed their use of a specific social media platform due to the amount of misinformation on it.

With misinformation becoming more prevalent, the study shows that 81 per cent Indians fear that the content they consume online could be altered to fuel misinformation, while an equal percentage also said that it is becoming difficult to verify whether the content they are consuming online is trustworthy.