India proposes strict IT rules for labelling deepfakes amid AI misuse

BENGALURU (Reuters) -India's government on Wednesday proposed new legal obligations for artificial intelligence and social media firms to tackle a growing proliferation of deepfakes online, by mandating them to label such content as AI-generated. The potential for misuse of generative AI tools "to cause user harm, spread misinformation, manipulate elections, or impersonate individuals has grown significantly," India's IT ministry said in a press release, explaining the rationale behind the move. The proposed rules mandate social media companies to require their users to declare if they are uploading deepfake content. With nearly 1 billion internet users, the stakes are high in a sprawling country of many ethnic and religious communities where fake news risks stirring up deadly strife and AI deepfake videos have alarmed officials during elections. (Reporting by Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Ed Osmond)

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