- Serious warning to social media platforms from IT Minister
The News Freedom
Chandigarh, November 6
Reacting to the deepfake video that has shocked people across India, Rashmika Mandanna, on Monday said the technology is being misused and called for serious action. “I feel really hurt to share this and have to talk about the deepfake video of me being spread online. Something like this is honestly, extremely scary not only for me, but also for each one of us who today is vulnerable to so much harm because of how technology is being misused” said Rashmika while sharing views in her post on the social media platform X (Previously known as Twitter).
“Today, as a woman and as an actor, I am thankful for my family, friends and well-wishers who are my protection and support system. But if this happened to me when I was in school or college, I genuinely can’t imagine how could I ever tackle this. We need to address this as a community and with urgency before more of us are affected by such identity theft.” she further said.
Taking serious note of the fake video, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said “Prime Minister Narendra Modi
ji’s government is committed to ensuring the safety and trust of all digital nagriks using the Internet under the IT rules notified in April, 2023″.
“It is a legal obligation for platforms to ensure no misinformation is posted by any user and ensure that when reported by any user or govt, misinformation is removed in 36 hours If platforms do not comply with this, rule 7 will apply and platforms can be taken to court by the aggrieved person under provisions of IPC. Deep fakes are the latest and even more dangerous and damaging form of misinformation and need to be dealt with by platforms” Rajeev Chandrasekhar further said.
🚨 There is an urgent need for a legal and regulatory framework to deal with deepfake in India.
You might have seen this viral video of actress Rashmika Mandanna on Instagram. But wait, this is a deepfake video of Zara Patel.
This thread contains the actual video. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/SidP1Xa4sT
— Abhishek (@AbhishekSay) November 5, 2023
“The viral fake video is perfect enough for ordinary social media users to fall for it. But if you watch the video carefully, you can see that when Rashmika (deepfake) was entering the lift, suddenly her face changed from the other girl to Rashmika. The original video is of Zara Patel, a British-Indian girl with 415K followers on Instagram. She uploaded this video on Instagram on 9 October.” journalist and researcher, Abhisek, said on social media platform X.
Even the veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan took to social media platform X to re-share a tweet by , Abhisek, seeking the urgent need for a legal and regulatory framework in such cases. Reacting to Abhisek’s tweet, Amitabh Bachchan said “Yes, this is a strong case for legal”.