Social media companies like as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube and Twitter have been directed by the government to take all ‘reasonable and practicable measures’ to remove or disable access to ‘deep fake imagery’ as per the IT Rules, 2021.
Remove or Disable “Deep Fake Imagery” : Government
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said in an advisory on Tuesday, that it will be within a time period of 24 hours of getting a complaint that these platforms are supposed to get rid of the content.
As per Rule 3(2)(b) of the IT Rules, this content could be impersonation in electronic form, including artificially morphed images of an individual.
MeitY sources said that “This is an advisory. We have been warned of deep fakes by our agencies including some in the MHA, so we have asked the companies to look into it”.
They added that the ministry expects a prompt response from the companies and will also invite them to discuss different ways in which deep fakes can be restricted.
MeitY Highlighted Potential Use of AI to the Compliance Officers
MeitY, in its email addressed to the chief compliance officers of these platforms, highlighted that there were reports regarding the potential use of artificial intelligence-generated deep fakes that were manipulating people by generating doctored content.
As per the email “…significant social media intermediaries are advised to ensure that their rules and regulations and the user agreement contain appropriate provisions for the users not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that impersonates another person and that the users are duly informed of the same”.
