Taking cognisance of the spread of AI-based deepfakes online, the IT Ministry on Tuesday issued revised guidelines for social media intermediaries like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, directing them to clearly label all AI-generated content and ensure that such synthetic material carries embedded identifiers.
The government has set a three-hour deadline for social media platforms to take down AI-generated or deepfake content once it is flagged by the government or ordered by a court.
The official notification also barred digital platforms from allowing the removal or suppression of AI labels or associated metadata once they have been applied.
The social media companies will be required to deploy automated tools to detect and prevent the circulation of illegal, sexually exploitative or deceptive AI-generated content, according to the MeitY order.
"An intermediary shall periodically inform its users, at least once every three months, in a simple and effective manner through its rules and regulations, privacy policy, user agreement, or any other appropriate means," about the consequences of violating rules related to AI misuse.
Where an intermediary becomes aware of any violation in relation to the creation, generation, modification, alteration, hosting, displaying, uploading, publishing, transmitting, storing, updating, sharing or otherwise disseminating of information as synthetically generated information, "it shall take expeditious and appropriate action".
According to the updated guidelines, the social media platforms need to deploy reasonable and appropriate technical measures, including automated tools or other suitable mechanisms, to not allow any user to create, generate, modify, alter, publish, transmit, share, or disseminate, as the case may be, any such synthetically generated information that violates any law for the time being in force, including the Act, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (45 of 2023), the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (32 of 2012), and the Explosive Substances Act, 1908 (6 of 1908).
"The MeitY amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, allows regulators and the government to monitor and control synthetically generated information (SGI), including deepfakes. AI-generated or altered content is to be labelled or identified, either through visible disclosures or embedded metadata, so that a user views and consumes content in an informed manner," Sajai Singh, Partner, JSA Advocates & Solicitors, told IBT.
"Interestingly, the amendments narrow the scope of what is to be flagged, compared to the earlier draft released by MeiTy, with a focus on misleading content rather than everything that has been artificially or algorithmically created, generated, modified or altered. On the other hand takedown time has been reduced from 36 hours to 3 hours! I think intermediaries will be happy with the reasonable efforts expectation rather than the earlier proposed visible labelling," he added.
The draft rules seek to mandate disclosure by users while posting AI-generated or modified content and require platforms to adopt technology to verify such declarations.
Social media platforms have already rolled out several features, allowing users to label certain content as generated or modified using artificial intelligence (AI).
(With inputs from IANS)
