According to the IT Regulations, 2021, the government has requested that social media companies including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Twitter take “all reasonable and feasible means” to delete or disable access to “deep false imagery.”
According to a Tuesday advice from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, these platforms must respond to complaints within 24 hours of receiving them.
ET has examined a copy of the letter, which was also distributed to websites including ShareChat, LinkedIn, and Snapchat.
The letter claimed that this content might constitute electronic impersonation under Rule 3(2)(b) of the IT Rules, including photoshopped images of specific people.
“This is a warning. Our agencies, including some in the MHA, have alerted us about deep fakes, thus we have ordered the corporations to look into it, according to MeitY insiders who spoke to ET.
They stated that the ministry anticipates a timely response from the businesses and will also ask them to talk about various restrictions on deep fakes.
MeitY emphasized that there were reports about the potential usage of artificial intelligence-generated deep fakes that were deceiving users by producing doctored content in the email that was sent to the chief compliance officers of these platforms.
The email advises “…significant social media intermediaries to ensure that their rules and regulations and the user agreement contain appropriate provisions for the users to refrain from hosting, displaying, uploading, modifying, publishing, transmitting, storing, updating or sharing any information that impersonates another person and that the users are duly informed of the same.”
In addition, intermediaries have been recommended to set up the proper techniques and procedures for identifying content that can contravene user agreements or governing rules. Additionally, it stated that prompt action must be taken, “well within the periods required by the IT Rules.”
The rules state that an intermediary must remove illegal information or disable access within 36 hours of receiving a court order, the notification from the government or one of its authorized agencies, or both, and within 24 hours when the information originates from an individual or a person authorized by that individual.
Moreover, MeitY mandated that intermediaries notify their users at least once a year that they have the right to quickly terminate access to usage rights or remove non-compliant content in the event of non-compliance with their rules and regulations or user agreement.
One of the five areas with a significant impact on user safety, according to homegrown microblogging site Koo, is impersonating famous people.
“We have created an internal ‘MisRep Algorithm’ that continuously searches the site for profiles that contain the text, images, or videos of well-known people. The images and videos are instantly deleted upon discovery of impersonating content, the accounts are immediately flagged for future inappropriate behavior, and the posts are removed from circulation. According to Rajneesh Jaswal, head of legal and policy at Koo, all these actions take place in less than 10 seconds.
