Communications and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday asked all social media platforms to present their plan of action within the next 10 days to curb the growing menace of deepfakes and other misuse of AI generated technologies.
The minister who earlier in the day held a meeting with all the platforms which included the likes of Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Telegram, industry body Nasscom and several AI academicians, said that their inputs would be incorporated by the government in framing new regulations that may impose penalties on both creator and platform hosting deepfakes.
The platforms have been asked to present their plans on four pillars – detection of deepfakes, misinformation; how to prevent spread of misinformation; how to strengthen reporting mechanisms; and increasing awareness.
Another round of meeting will be held with the platforms after they have submitted their action plan. Vaishnaw said that this way the regulations will be framed in a consultative manner. He said that the government can bring the regulation in the form of new rules, new law or even an amendment to existing rules.
The minister said that the new regulation will have provisions of penalties on persons who upload or create such deepfakes. There are also likely to be provisions that lay down ways in which users can demarcate between deepfakes and original content.
“Users have a right to know what is natural and what is artificially generated. There is an agreement that there should be labelling and watermark. However, people have found ways to bypass watermarking and labelling,” Vaishnaw said.
The minister said that one of the points discussed at the meeting related to the use of AI-generated deepfakes in advertisements. There was also discussions on whether apps that create deepfakes be disallowed, or there are some sort of control on such apps.
Deepfake is a AI generated technology which impersonates the voice and face of a real person in such a manner that it’s very difficult to spot whether it’s fake. It shot into prominence after actor Rashmika Mandanna’s face was found to have been used in an embarrassing video earlier this month. Some other celebrities including Katrina Kaif and Kajol were also reported to be victims of deepfake.
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also warned about the threat deepfakes pose.
On Saturday, Vaishnaw had warned social media platforms that they would lose the immunity they enjoy under the safe harbour clause under the Information and Technology Act if they fail to take measures against deepfakes. The clause states that an online platform cannot be held accountable for the content shared on it by users.
On Friday, minister of state for electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar will hold another round of meeting with the social media platforms.
