Government Will Tackle menace of Deepfakes Strongly, Planning New Regulations, Heavy Penalties

In the last few months, cases of making fake videos of politicians and celebrities using Artificial Intelligence (AI) have increased. Such videos are called deepfakes. The central government is preparing to make new regulations against this. Under these regulations, fines can be imposed on the platforms that create deepfakes and host them.

Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishaw has called deepfakes a threat to democracy. “Deepfakes are a new threat to democracy. It can weaken the credibility of society and its institutions,” Ashwini said after a meeting with various stakeholders. These stakeholders included representatives of social media platforms, NASSCOM, an organization of software companies, and professors associated with the field of AI. “We are starting to create regulations for deepfakes,” Ashwini said. He said that the government will work on four points – identification of deepfakes, preventing the spread of such content, strengthening the reporting process and raising awareness on the issue.

All the stakeholders present in this meeting also expressed similar apprehensions regarding deepfakes. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also warned about deepfakes. Modi had told that he has asked the team of ChatGPT to identify deepfakes and issue a warning when such videos are circulated on the internet. He said that in the era of Artificial Intelligence, it is important that technology is used responsibly.

Along with this, Modi had also cited a deepfake video of him, in which he was shown performing Garba. He had told, “Recently I saw a video in which I am seen singing Garba song. There are many more such videos available on the internet.” Modi had asked the media to make people aware on this issue. The issue of deepfake videos has been in the headlines for the last few weeks. Deepfake videos of popular actresses Rashmika Mandanna and Kajol have further increased this. These videos were prepared by trimming them. In many other countries too, there is a demand to make regulations regarding deepfakes.

(This news has not been edited by the NDTV team. It is published directly from the syndicated feed.)