IT Ministry Advises Swift Removal of Deepfake Content by Social Media Platforms
NEW DELHI: Talking tough on social media intermediaries, the ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) has sent advisories to social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and similar other intermediaries, to take down misleading content generated through artificial intelligence – deep fakes – within 24 hours. The advisory comes a day after a deepfake of actor Rashmika Mandanna went viral on social media platforms. The ministry had issued a similar advisory to the platforms in February this year.
Making of reasonable efforts by significant social media intermediaries to cause the users of their social media platform computer resources not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that impersonates another person, the ministry in a statement advised these social media intermediaries to ensure that due diligence is exercised.
It further said that reasonable efforts are made to identify misinformation and deep fakes, and in particular, information that violates the provisions of rules and regulations and/or user agreements and users are caused not to host such information/content/deeprakes. “Remove any such content when reported within 36 hours of such reporting and ensure expeditious action, well within the timeframes stipulated under the IT Rules 2021, and disable access to the content / information,” it said.
However, the government sources said that the advisory has reiterated existing legal provisions that platforms have to follow as online intermediaries. It has mentioned Section 66D of the Information Technology Act, which entails punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resources with imprisonment up to three years and fine up to Rs 1 lakh.
In February, the IT ministry had issued advisories to the chief compliance officers of various social media platforms after it received reports regarding the potential use of AI-generated deep fakes that were manipulating people by generating doctored content. “The intermediaries were reminded that any failure to act as per the relevant provisions of the IT Act and rules would attract Rule 7 of the IT Rules, 2021 and could render the organisation liable to losing the protection available under Section 79(1) of the Information Technology Act, 2000,” it said.
