Internal Security

Govt directs social media platforms to comply with IT rules amid concerns over deepfakes

05 Jan 2024 2 mins Download PDF

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Context: The advisory by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) mandates that intermediaries communicate prohibited content, particularly those specified under Rule 3(1)(b) of the IT Rules, clearly and precisely to users.

News:

The Indian government issued an advisory to social media platforms regarding compliance with IT rules, specifically addressing concerns about deepfakes. The advisory follows a meeting between officials from companies like Meta, Google, Telegram, Koo, Sharechat, Apple, HP, and Dell with Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar regarding the threat of deepfakes.
Social media platforms are mandated to inform users about content not permitted under IT Rules, especially those listed in Rule 3(1)(b), during registration and regularly during logins or information uploads.

Platforms must ensure users are aware of penal provisions, including those in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the IT Act 2000, in case of Rule 3(1)(b) violations.

Rule 3(1)(b) within the IT rules' due diligence section requires intermediaries to communicate their rules, regulations, privacy policy, and user agreement in the user's preferred language and prevent the hosting or sharing of specified prohibited content.

The advisory aims to combat misinformation, deepfakes powered by AI, and to enhance the safety and trust of users on the internet.
The government nominated an officer to assist users in filing FIRs against social media firms in cases related to deepfakes.

Deepfakes

They refer to fake content, including videos, images, and audio, generated using advanced artificial intelligence tools.

The term "deepfake" originated in 2017 when a Reddit user named "deepfakes" posted explicit videos of celebrities.
The technology behind deepfakes involves the use of generative adversarial networks (GANs), a machine learning technique. GANs modify or create images and videos by learning subjects' movements and facial expressions from SOURCE material and replicating them in another medium.
Creators use a large database of SOURCE images to ensure the realism of deepfakes, often targeting public figures, celebrities, and politicians.
The process includes using one software to create a fake video based on the dataset and another software to detect signs of forgery. The collaborative effort refines the fake video until it becomes challenging for the second software to identify the forgery.
This approach, known as "unsupervised learning," allows machine-language models to teach themselves, making it difficult for other software to distinguish deepfakes.