5 days Ago By Ishika Gupta
Explainer Briefly Slides Elon Musk-led social media platform X has filed a lawsuit against California’s Deepfake Deception Act, 2024, contending that the bill allegedly violates the Constitutional provision of free speech, reported Bloomberg. The company claims that the bill undermines the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which aims to protect criticism of the government, including “tolerance for potentially false speech made in the context of such criticisms.” What does the law comprise? Formally known as the Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act of 2024 , this legislation calls upon large online platforms to employ state-of-the-art techniques to remove “materially deceptive content” during the 120 days before an election in California.
Within the law, such content is defined as audio or visual media that is modified or created digitally, including deepfakes, outputs by chatbots, and more. The online platforms must also facilitate a mechanism for users to report deceptive content, after which they must respond to the complainant within 36 hours of the report, stipulating the status of the report and any action taken. Finally, for any reported “materially deceptive content” that was posted either outside the defined 120-day period or that is present within an advertisement or election communication outside the mentioned categories, the platform must issue a label stating that the content has been manipulated.
The law will come into effect from January 1, 2025. Examples of deepfakes in politics Deepfakes are generally classified as false, digitally altered images and videos created using artificial intelligence to display “fake” events. Deepfake content surged by 3000% in n 2023 alone, according to Onfido’s Identity Fraud Report 2024 highlighting the growing prevalence of AI-manipulated media.
Several concerns have also been expressed about the impact of deepfakes and AI-generated content in influencing voter perceptions during elections. In a study by Kapwing tracking deepfake video requests, US’ forthcoming President Donald Trump topped the list with more than 12,000 such requests. Politicians such as Joe Biden with over 7,000 such requests, Arnold Schwarzenegger with over 1200 requests and others were also mentioned within the list.
Among many such deepfakes, that of US President Joe Biden delivering a fake speech after dropping out of the presidential race was also doing rounds on social media platform X. During India’s General Election 2024, deepfake videos of politicians engaging in false activities were also found across social media platforms. Do deepfakes and AI threaten democracy? In January this year, Tamil Nadu’s former Chief Minister (CM) M.
Karunanidhi who (passed away in 2018) appeared in an AI video, during which he praised the southern state’s current CM M.K. Stalin for “good governance”.
According to the political party’s spokesperson, the same was done to “enthuse party cadres”, the Rest of the World reported . Besides this, several other instances of using generative AI constructively to initiate a more personalised appeal to voters, among other strategies, have also been seen in India. However, this phenomenon contradicts pre-poll surveys in the country, which expressed concerns over the integration of AI in elections challenging democracy.
Furthermore, several experts who spoke at the MediaNama event on ‘Fact Checking and Combating Misinformation in Elections’, earlier this year, contended that conventional methods of spreading misinformation surpassed the use of AI in doing so during the elections. Significantly, the speakers also noted that a downside to the inclusion of AI was the technology enabling political parties with plausible deniability concerning political blunders. To explain, politicians could potentially disregard evidence of their statements, labelling it as “deepfakes”, and eroding faith in accurate information.
How was AI used during India’s election? Speaking about the overall use of AI during India’s Lok Sabha Elections 2024, the speakers at the event stated the following: At the event, the speakers also concluded that while AI-generated misinformation didn’t adversely affect democracy during the 2024 election, deepfakes and AI could be employed to push multiple narratives by political parties in the future. Indian laws regulating deepfakes and AI Although India lacks any specific laws monitoring deepfakes and AI-related crimes; however, in May this year, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology announced that a separate Act to regulate deepfakes could be in the works in the future. Before this, in April 2024, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw also stated that the government is working on a law on artificial intelligence to protect the rights of news publishers and content creators while tackling user harm.
Besides these potential laws, specific provisions of the Information and Technology Act, 2000 and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 can currently regulate deepfake crimes. Also Read:.
