Istafa Ali
According to two people who spoke to Reuters on Friday, the Indian government sent a warning to social media companies such as Facebook and YouTube to remind users time and again that uploading deepfakes and anything that promotes obscenity or disinformation is illegal in their local communities.
During a private meeting, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the deputy minister of information technology, issued a warning to numerous companies stating that many had not updated their usage terms despite the 2022 regulations that forbid content that is “harmful” to children, vulgar, or that “impersonates another person”.
It coincides with growing concerns over deepfakes, which are realistic-looking but fake movies produced by AI algorithms trained on internet footage. This week, India is drafting regulations to counter deepfakes, according to a key minister.
According to Chandrasekhar, the corporations need to remind users each time they log in that they are not allowed to publish such stuff, or they should remind users of the regulations.
The two individuals, who asked not to be identified because the meeting was private, claimed that if he didn’t give them orders compelling them to comply, he would make threats.
One of the individuals claimed that during the discussion, the minister characterised it as a “non-negotiable” demand of the Indian government.
In a press release, the IT ministry of India announced that all platforms have decided to harmonise their content policies with national regulations.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by Chandrasekhar or Facebook.
YouTube owner Alphabet Inc.’s Google said in a statement that it has strong policies and procedures in place to detect and eliminate harmful content from all of its platforms and products, and that it is dedicated to the responsible development of artificial intelligence.
Deepfakes have been a topic of worry for the Indian government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in recent days.
Prime Minister Modi expressed concerns about the detrimental effects of deepfakes on society and urged world leaders to collaborate in the effort to regulate artificial intelligence during a virtual summit of the G20 on Wednesday.
Nations are rushing to develop regulations governing artificial intelligence. Regulations governing social media businesses, which consider India to be a key growth area, have been tightened.
The corporations were informally chastised by the government last year for failing to remove what it called fake news from their websites, which it claimed compelled it to request content takedowns.
