Lok Sabha polls: ECI cracks whip on deepfakes, sets 3-hour deadline for parties to pull down content

Deepfakes are synthetic media that have been digitally manipulated to replace one person's likeness convincingly with that of another.

With artificial intelligence-generated content on politicians storming social media platforms in the time of polls, the Election Commission of India has warned parties against the use of deepfakes and set a three-hour deadline for taking down such items after being spotted.

In an official communication on May 6, addressed to all political parties, ECI joint director Anuj Chandak said: "Whenever such deepfake audios/videos, come to the notice of political parties, they shall immediately take down the post but maximum within a period of three hours and also identify and warn the responsible person within the party."

The poll panel directed the political parties to not allow their respective social media handles to publish and circulate deepfake audios/videos which violate the provisions of extant rules and regulations.

Recent deepfake videos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee dancing has triggered a controversy on social media platforms. The Kolkata Police issued notices to users who uploaded the content.

A 'deepfake morphed video' of Union home minister Amit Shah has also resulted in FIRs being lodged against functionaries of the Telangana Congress.

"The use of such manipulated, distorted, edited content on social media platforms has the potential to wrongfully sway voter opinions... Further, the scale of spread of such misinformation has been observed to be dangerously unrestrained due to the availability of the option of forwarding/re sharing/ re-posting/ re-tweeting on the social media platforms," the ECI letter said.

The ECI has brought to the notice of political parties the existing legal provisions that govern the regulatory framework against the use of misinformation and impersonation using deepfakes.

The panel said that existing framework to regulate such content include Sections 66C and 66D of the IT Act, Section 123(4) of the RP Act 1951, and Sections 171G, 465, 469 and 505 of the IPC.

"In case of continued presence of such unlawful information or fake user
account after reporting to social media platform, to approach the
Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) under Rule 3A of the Information
Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code)
Rules, 2021," the ECI letter said.