India seeks to enforce rules to deter deepfakes

India’s government has warned social media firms, including Facebook and YouTube, to repeatedly remind users that local laws prohibit them from posting deepfakes and content that spreads obscenity or misinformation.

The warning was conveyed by deputy IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a closed-door meeting where he said many companies had not updated their usage terms despite 2022 rules that prohibit content “harmful” to children, obscene or that “impersonates another person.”

It comes amid growing concerns over deepfakes which a top minister this week said India is drawing up rules to address.

Chandrasekhar said the companies must raise awareness of the rules by reminding users every time they log in that they cannot post such content or by issuing reminders.

The minister described it as a “non-negotiable” demand of the Indian government during the meeting, adding that otherwise, he would issue directions forcing them to do so.

India’s IT ministry said in a press statement that all platforms had agreed to align their content guidelines with government rules. Facebook and Chandrasekhar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which owns YouTube, said in a statement that it was committed to responsible AI development and has robust policies and systems to identify and remove harmful content across its products and platforms.

Also Read: Nigeria seeks Safer Artificial Intelligence Utilisation

The Indian government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have raised concerns over deepfakes in recent days.

Earlier, during a virtual summit of G20 nations, Prime Minister Modi called on global leaders to jointly work towards regulating AI and raised concerns over the negative impact of deepfakes on society.

Countries across the world are racing to draw up rules to regulate AI. India has been tightening the regulations of social media companies, which count the South Asian nation as a top growth market.

Last year, the government privately criticized the companies for not removing what it described as fake news on their sites, which it said forced it to order content takedowns.

Deepfakes are realistic yet fabricated media that have been digitally manipulated to replace one person’s likeness convincingly with that of another by leveraging powerful techniques from machine learning and artificial intelligence that can more easily deceive.