Last year, fans and friends of Rashmika Mandanna were jolted out of their daily lives when a deepfake video of the actor went viral. “Extremely scary,” is what she called it.
That monster has returned. With the elections already underway in the country, deepfake videos of top stars Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh political parties were recently circulated. They swiftly reacted – “Alarmed by the recent viral video”, Khan filed an FIR on April 17 and declaring it was “fake and totally untrue”. Even Singh followed suit to file an FIR and also took to X on April 19 to warn his fans, “Deepfake se bacho dostonnnn.”
The deepfakes issue can churn up chaos if unchecked. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cautioned citizens to be beware of them, the stars’ videos come at a crucial and sensitive time. We got experts to give the lowdown on the illicit content and what is needed to take action against it.
‘It’s not easy to differentiate between real and fake’
“Aamir Khan’s video looks super realistic, it was properly synchronised and that’s the level of perfection we have reached,” says Cybercrime investigator Ritesh Bhatia, who adds that he predicted the rise of deepfakes four years ago.
He adds, “We have AI available to everyone and due to it, it’s not easy to differentiate between real and fake. Not just videos, but just from one photo, you can make anyone sing, dance or do whatever using AI.”
To tackle the issue, Bhatia suggests implementing the P.O.V. method. “The P is for pause to think it might be fake. O is show zero trust on what you see on the cyber space. And V is to say verify,” he explains, adding that deepfakes can be used by a political party to attack themselves too to play the victim card. “The victims need to talk about it and media needs to report it otherwise this all is going to become so normal.”
‘It can be highly detrimental to a celeb’s public image’
While the more technologically educated people might be able to make out the right from the wrong, not everyone might be able to do that. “Perhaps the masses would be confused if they did not do due diligence before forming their opinion, as is normally the case. It can be highly detrimental to a celebrity’s public image as the masses will be divided on this. It will directly adversely impact their fan following and future. A celebrity like Ranveer Singh has to strive hard to build a powerful and positive personal brand narrative which can be reversed in mere seconds by such acts of foul play. It should be his priority to issue a public statement,” says image consultant Tina Singh Walia.
‘There are certain gaps in law which need to evolve’
The most relevant and applicable laws for deepfake video cases are the cyber-crime laws and the IT Act. “The areas we also need to look at are the privacy laws, defamation laws as well as intellectual property laws. There are Information Technology reasonable security practices and procedures sensitive personal data or information rules from 2011 under the IT Act, to impose obligations on entities handling personal data, which can apply to cases of deepfake videos,” informs advocate Vidit Divya Kumat, adding how deepfake videos can turn the tide during election. He informs, “Punishment for these cases is provided under Information Technology rules. Also, not only the person who has created a deepfake, punishment will also be given to the ones who have circulated it.”
The advocate adds, “Right now, there are certain gaps in law which need to evolve, but lawmakers and legal experts are actively working towards forming a comprehensive framework.”
