Deepfake videos were used for the first time in India by BJP: Report

Deepfakes made an entry into Indian politics at the Delhi Assembly Election campaign, according to a report by Vice. The website reports that two videos on February started circulating on WhatsApp ahead of the elections in which BJP Delhi president Manoj Tiwari was seen criticising the AAP government and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The two videos of BJP Delhi president Manoj Tiwari were in Haryanvi and English. The report claims that the English and Haryanvi videos were not real but the original was a video of the BJP state unit leader speaking in Hindi. The report suggests that visuals were manipulated to edit lip-syncing and make it appear as if Tiwari was indeed speaking.

Deepfake technology manipulates visuals and audio to make the video look original. In this case, the original video was in Hindi in which Tiwari spoke about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and Kejriwal's opposition to the new citizenship law. In the English version of the video, he appears to be questioning Kejriwal’s promises and urging voters to "press the lotus button on February 8".

BJP Delhi IT and social media co-in charge Neelkant Bakshi told the website that Deepfake technology has helped them scale campaign efforts like never before. He added that Haryanvi videos let them approach the target audience even if the candidate didn’t speak the language.

Bakshi told Hindustan Times that many agencies approached them to pitch their products but they hadn’t tied up with any agencies. However, he added that if the technology was used positively it "sounded good".

Jenry Ajder, head of threat intelligence at Deeptrace Labs, a Netherlands-based cyber-security firm told the publication that deepfakes have not been seen as such in election campaigns in India and that it certainly is novel. He added that once such a technology is put into use as a political tool, it changes the way in which campaign tools are used in the future.

Executive Director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, Apar Gupta told the website that the Election Commission does not seem responsive to threats from technologies such as deepfakes.