New Delhi: The Centre Thursday said it would urgently enforce new regulation over deepfake content as they have emerged as a “new threat to democracy”.
Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said deepfakes weakened trust in society and its institutions, and were going unchecked because of social media.
“The use of social media ensures that deepfakes spread rapidly… They are going viral within a few minutes of being uploaded. So, we need to take very urgent steps to strengthen trust in society and protect our democracy,” the minister told reporters after a meeting with stakeholders, including social media platforms, industry body Nasscom and artificial intelligence (AI) experts.
The minister said the “long and candid” discussions resulted in a unanimous decision to come up with a clear actionable plan within the next 10 days.
The government and the industry, he said, would focus mainly on four areas – detection of deepfake content before and after it is posted, an effective mechanism for preventing propagation of deepfake content, effective and expeditious reporting and grievance redressal mechanism, and mass awareness on the issue.
He added that all companies shared the government’s view that deepfakes are not “free speech”.
“They understood the need for much heavier regulation about this. We have agreed to start drafting the regulation from today. We will have a new set of regulations within a short time,” the minister said, adding the rules could either become a new law or amendments factored into existing laws.
Vaishnaw said the government would also look at penalties for people who created and uploaded such content and penalise social media platforms too.
“We have to make sure that people who create this are identified… They will have their own set of punishments. Simultaneously, platforms are the tools through which this content is spreading… They will also have to take responsibility for what they are allowing… Are they taking enough steps to prevent such damage to society? Are they taking enough technological steps for that?” the minister asked.
The government will also invite comments and inputs from the public in the meanwhile, and will meet stakeholders again in early December, Vaishnaw said.
The Centre’s move stems from serious concerns raised over recently-viral deepfake videos targeting celebrities on social media.
At the recent G20 virtual summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, underlined growing global apprehension over the adverse impact of AI, particularly the deepfake technology.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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