India’s IT minister issues warning after actor’s ‘scary’ deepfake surfaces

Viral video shows AI-fabricated video of Mandanna wearing a black dress and entering an elevator

A deepfake video of actress Rashmika Mandanna has gone viral and has been labelled as a “form of misinformation”.

The video posted on social media shows an AI-fabricated video of Mandanna wearing a black dress and entering an elevator.

But the original video is of British-Indian influencer Zara Patel who has over 400,000 followers on Instagram.

India’s Information Technology minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar issued a warning and reminder on X/Twitter in the hopes of tackling misinformation.

“PM @narendramodi ji’s Govt is committed to ensuring Safety and Trust of all DigitalNagriks using 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.”

He said this will be done by ensuring “when reported by any user or govt, misinformation is removed in 36 hours”. If platforms do not comply with this rule, they “can be taken to court by aggrieved person under provisions of IPC (Indian Penal Code)”.

“Deep fakes are latest and even more dangerous and damaging form of misinformation and needs to be dealt with by platforms,” Mr Chandrasekhar added.

Mandanna in a statement posted on X said that the issue must be addressed with “urgency”.

She added: “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.

“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,” Mandanna continued.

Actor Amitabh Bachchan also backed the actress and called for legal action against the viral deepfake video.

“Yes this is a strong case for legal,” he wrote in a post responding to another user calling for “an urgent need for a legal and regulatory framework to deal with deepfake in India”.

The actress thanked Bachchan for supporting her. She said: “Thank you for standing up for me sir, I feel safe in a country with leaders like you.”

Deepfake is a digital method to alter or replace one person’s likeness with that of another using AI technology. Deepfakes can be audio, video or even image based.