Govt Asks Twitter, Facebook, Other Social Media Firms To Take Steps To Remove Deep Fakes

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has reportedly asked social media companies such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube and Twitter to take ‘reasonable and practicable measures’ to remove or disable access to ‘deep fake imagery’ as per the IT Rules, 2021

In an advisory, MeitY asked these platforms to remove such imagery within 24 hours of getting a complaint from an individual, ET reported.

Deep fakes are forged or fake videos created via deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence, where a person’s likeness, including their face and voice, are realistically swapped with someone else’s. 

The MeitY advisory also said that this content could be impersonation in electronic form, including artificially morphed images of an individual, according to Rule 3(2)(b) of the IT Rules.

The report cited a MeitY source as saying that the ministry has been warned of deep fakes by agencies including some in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Accordingly, MeitY has asked the companies to look into the issue.

The ministry is expecting a prompt response from the companies on the issue and will later invite them for a discussion on the ways to restrict deep fakes.

“…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,” MeitY said in an email addressed to the chief compliance officers of the platforms.

It also highlighted that there are reports on AI-generated deep fakes that are manipulating people by generating doctored content.

Social media platforms with more than 50,00,000 registered users are classified as ‘significant’ social media intermediaries’ in India under the IT Rules, 2021.

The government has been coming out with amendments to the IT Rules from time to time to make the internet ‘safe, trusted and accountable’. Last month, MeitY proposed another amendment to the IT Rules, under which social media platforms will have to take down news or information identified as ‘fake’ by the Fact Checking Unit of the Press Information Bureau.