Deepfakes Alert: India Calls on Facebook and YouTube to Take Action!

According to two sources, the Indian government issued a warning to social media companies such as Facebook and YouTube, instructing them to regularly inform users about the prohibition of posting deepfakes, as well as content that promotes obscenity or misinformation, in accordance with local laws.

The warning was delivered by Deputy IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a closed-door meeting, where he said many companies had not updated their terms of service despite 2022 rules banning content that is “harmful”, obscene or “impersonating” children.

It comes amid growing concerns about deepfakes – realistic but videos created by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms trained on online footage – which India’s top minister said this week India was drawing up rules to deal with.

Chandrasekhar said companies need to raise awareness of the rules by reminding users every time they log in that they can’t post such content, or by issuing reminders.

He said otherwise he would issue instructions forcing them to do so, said the two sources, who declined to identify the private meeting.

The minister described it as a “non-negotiable” demand of the Indian government during the meeting, said one of the sources.

India’s IT ministry said in a press release that all platforms had agreed to align their content guidelines with government regulations.

Facebook and Chandrasekhar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alphabet Inc’s Google, which owns YouTube, said in a statement that it is committed to responsible AI development and has robust policies and systems in place to identify and remove harmful content from products and platforms.

The Indian government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have expressed concern about deep counterfeiting in recent days.

At the G20 virtual summit on Wednesday, Prime Minister Modi called on global leaders to work together to regulate artificial intelligence and expressed concern about the negative impact of deep fakes on society.

Countries around the world are racing to come up with rules governing artificial intelligence. India has tightened regulations on social media companies, eyeing the South Asian country as its biggest growth market.

Last year, the government privately criticized the companies for not removing fake news from their sites, which it said had forced it to order content removals.