Deepfakes | Govt will come up with new regulations soon, says IT minister Vaishnaw
He met social media platforms on the deepfake issue and said that companies have agreed on the need for clear actionable work in areas such as detection, prevention.
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday (November 23) said that the government will come up with new regulations soon to tackle deepfakes.
The move comes after several 'deepfake' videos targeting leading actors including Rashmika Mandanna and Kajol went viral, sparking public outrage and raising concerns over the misuse of technology and tools for creating doctored content and fake narratives.
Deepfakes refer to synthetic or doctored media that is digitally manipulated and altered to convincingly misrepresent or impersonate someone, using a form of artificial intelligence.
The minister, who met social media platforms on the deepfake issue on Thursday, said that companies have agreed on the need for clear actionable work in areas such as detection, prevention, strengthening of reporting mechanism, and raising user awareness.
"We will start drafting regulation today itself, and within a short time we will have a new set of regulations for deepfakes ... this could be in the form of amending existing framework or bringing new rules, or new law," Vaishnaw told reporters in Delhi.
Deepfakes have emerged as a new threat to democracy, the minister said.
"We will have our next meeting in the first week of December...that will be on follow-up action on today's decisions, and also on what should be included in the draft regulation," Vaishnaw said.
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had cautioned that deepfakes created by artificial intelligence can lead to a big crisis and stoke discontent in society, as he urged the media to raise awareness about its misuse and educate people.
Addressing the media at BJP's 'Diwali Milan' programme at the party's headquarters in Delhi, Modi said he recently saw a video of him performing garba even though he has not done so since school days. Even those who love him are forwarding the video, he said in a lighter vein.
"In a diverse society like ours, deepfakes can cause a big crisis and even stoke the fire of discontent as people generally trust anything associated with the media in the same way anyone clad in 'gedua' (saffron) tends to get respect from others.
(With agency inputs)