The Information Technology had a meeting on Thursday to cater and make regulations for the impending danger lurking on people’s safety and security due to deepfakes.
In the meeting flagged by the Information Technology ministry, it has been concluded that the government needs to make rules and regulations regarding this issue at the earliest possible time and announced that a draft for these regulations will be ready soon.
Image Source- Times of India
Concerns raised during the Information Technology meeting
Information Technology had a meeting with various social media platforms and AI companies and further the IT minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw addressed the press conference and said that deepfake is the emerging danger towards democracy, accountability and privacy of people. He further announced that the government will take appropriate actions and penalties for both the creators and the platforms promoting such videos and content.
The Information Technology minister informed in the press conference that during the meeting four major aspects were discussed. First, how such videos with deepfake content can be detected. How people can be restrained from posting such videos and whether such videos can be prevented by going viral through any means.
The meeting also discussed how a reporting mechanism can be made where people can put up their grievances regarding the deepfake content. Mr. Vaishnaw declared that the issue needs immediate attention and the work will be started soon to make a draft regulation for deepfakes.
Image Source- Hindustan Times
Concerning issue of deepfakes
The Information Technology ministry further said that both the creators and the social media platform for curating and promoting such videos will be held accountable and fines will be imposed on them.
The Ministry states that in the globalised world of present time, the exchange of contents has no bounds but they said that platforms and creators have to abide by the Indian rules and regulations if they want their contents to be seen by the people of India.
According to the media sources, Mr. Vaishnaw says that the next meeting will take place in the first week of December where further progress of the subjects discussed in the meeting will be discussed. Till any further updates, social media apps have assured that they will take all the measures to protect people’s privacy and will restrain such contents from promoting.
One of the major steps taken to tackle the issue of deepfake is that the government will allow people also to raise their opinions and concerns on the issue through MyGov app. Deepfakes undermine the right to privacy and expression of common people through AI generated pseudo content and hence regulations will be made in such a manner that it stops such pseudo content from harming the society, said IT ministry.
Each and every stakeholder that attended Thursday’s meeting held by the IT Ministry came to a consensus that this issue needs to be addressed at the earliest to protect people from any such harmful content.
Image Source- Hindustan Times
The concern regarding the harmful use of AI technology was also discussed in the virtual G20 summit held on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the meet said that the issue requires the joint actions by each nation to tackle this problem. He further said that AI must reach people but it has to be safe in all senses for their use.
The issue of deepfake came into focus when the false video of actresses Rashmika Mandanna and Katrina Kaif surfaced on social media platforms.
