Report from MediaNews4U
In Brief – India has amended its rules requiring social media platforms such as Meta, YouTube and X to remove unlawful material, adding AI-generated “deepfakes” to the regime. The new rules, which go into effect on February 20, bring AI-generated content under the 2021 Indian IT Act that applies to unlawful online information, and shortens the current 36-hour deadline for platforms to take down material to just three hours after receiving notice from government authorities. To address government concerns with “deepfakes”, the new regulations require social media platforms to obtain a user declaration before publishing content stating whether audio, visual, or audio-visual content that appears real is synthetically generated, and then requires the platforms to use “reasonable and appropriate technical measures,” including automated tools, to verify those user declarations. If content is confirmed to be synthetic, it must be clearly and prominently labeled. Companies must also embed permanent metadata or provenance markers, including unique identifiers where technically feasible, to trace the resource used to create or modify the material. India’s current IT law permits government authorities to issue broad content takedown orders, with tens of thousands issued in recent years. Critics say that shortening the time given to platforms to comply to just three hours will push them to adopt automated take-down processes rather than reviewing individual takedown orders.
Context – Social media companies have long dealt with governments, including democracies, who have seen content online that they don’t like and pushed platforms to police it. Social media regulation in Russia, Turkey, and India is easily criticized on censorship grounds, but Germany, France, and Australia were early adopters as well, and the EU’s Digital Services Act and UK Online Safety Bill have been criticized as justifying the mechanisms of online censorship. In practice, platform compliance appears closely linked to the perceived long-term economic value of the market in question.