Government To Draft New Regulations To Tackle Deepfake Threat: IT Minister

Union Minister for Electronics, IT and Communications, Ashwini Vaishnaw, convened a meeting with key stakeholders, including social media platforms, government officials, and cybersecurity experts.

New Delhi: The government has decided to take urgent steps to deal with the menace of deepfake technology, which can create fake and misleading videos and images using artificial intelligence. The Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology and Communications, Ashwini Vaishnaw, convened a meeting with key stakeholders, including social media platforms, government officials, and cybersecurity experts, on Thursday.

The minister said that the meeting was held to formulate a comprehensive strategy to combat the challenges posed by deepfake content. He said that the strategy would focus on four aspects: detection, prevention, reporting mechanism, and awareness. He said that deepfake had emerged as a huge social threat and needed immediate action.

He also said that new regulations would be brought in to address the issue and the drafting of the regulations would be completed in the coming weeks. He said that all the stakeholders had agreed on the seriousness of the threat and the need for heavier regulation. He said that deepfake was not free speech, but something that was really harmful for the society.

The minister also shared a video that he said showed an entrance to a secret tunnel of the militant group Hamas under a civilian’s home near a hospital in Gaza. He said that the video was an example of how deepfake technology could be used to spread misinformation and propaganda.

The meeting was attended by social media companies, NASSCOM, and professors working on artificial intelligence. The minister said that the next meeting on the issue of deepfake would be held in the first week of December. He said that the government was committed to safeguarding the society from the detrimental impacts of deepfake technology.