Indians woke up to the imminent danger of Deepfakes with the viral video of film star, Rashmika
Mandanna’s finding its way into everyone’s screens. Some of us may have heard about and were
vaguely aware of Deepfake but here was absolute horrifying proof of it in front of our eyes.
While politicians and celebrities are especially vulnerable to this, it goes without saying that it could
happen to any unsuspecting individual and traumatize him or her forever.
The incident made the Dept of IT, Government of Inda, issue a notice to social media platforms stating in
clear terms that impersonating online was illegal under Section 66D of the Information Technology Act
of 2000. Authorities have pulled the reins on Deepfake with restrictions on circulation and viewing and
formulating a stronger framework in terms of privacy and data protection of users.
But what is Deepfake? It is a machine learning model that may be used to tamper and change existing
images, superimposing them with other images, videos, or audio to create an altogether new piece of
content that appears to be real but is totally fake. What is alarming is that rapid advances are
continually being made with the use of enhanced technology creating hitherto unknown cybercrime.
Deepfake is being used with fraudulent and malicious intent by organizations and individuals to violate
and harm unsuspecting persons.
PM, Narendra Modi, addressing the Deepfake issue said,” It is one of the biggest threats facing the
nation’s system today. Citizens and the media should be especially vigilant about it to prevent
unwanted chaos or major disturbances in society.” He cited a Deepfake video of his own where he was
performing the Garba (traditional dance of Gujarat). He admitted that it looked quite realistic. During his
speech, the Prime Minister said that he had spoken to AI leaders about the challenges that AI and its
implications have in the nation, suggesting that AI-generated content ought to be mentioned clearly in
all content that is created using such tools.
Bengali