India will crack down on deepfakes and false information made by AI. They will do this with the help of a new law that could allow authors and social media sites that help spread this kind of harmful content to be fined.

Recently, the Union Information Technology and Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the government and other stakeholders will develop actionable items in ten days on identifying deepfakes, stopping their uploading and viral sharing, and strengthening the reporting mechanism for such content. It will allow citizens to take legal action against AI-generated harmful content on the internet.

"Deepfakes have emerged as an unprecedented danger to democratic systems." "Deepfakes erode confidence in institutions and society," stated the minister.

Additionally, the regulation may include monetary penalties, according to the minister. "When we implement the regulation, we must consider the penalty for both the platform and the individual who uploaded or created the content," he explained.

The minister recently convened meetings with technology industry representatives, including those from Meta, Google, and Amazon, to solicit their perspectives on managing deepfake content.

"The rise of social media platforms facilitates the exponential growth of undetected defects, which are gaining widespread attention within minutes of their initial upload." For this reason, we must take immediate action to restore public confidence to safeguard our democracy.

The minister emphasized the necessity for social media platforms to adopt a more proactive stance, given the potentially imminent harm inflicted by deepfake content and the potential ineffectiveness of even a marginally delayed response.

"Everyone has reached a consensus to produce concrete, implementable steps within the following ten days, centred on four fundamental pillars that were deliberated upon: identification of deepfakes, prevention of deepfake and deep misinformation content publication and viral dissemination, enhancement of the reporting system for such content, and dissemination of knowledge through collaborative endeavours between industry and government entities," the minister further stated.

In addition, the new regulation may be implemented as either an amendment to India's IT regulations or an entirely new law.

Furthermore, "This domain could be governed by a novel standalone legislation, amendments to pre-existing regulations, or a supplement to existing legal frameworks." "During the first week of December, we will hold our next meeting to deliberate on a proposed regulation about deepfakes. Subsequently, the public will have the opportunity to review and comment on the draught." the minister elaborated.