IT minister Vaishnaw calls for stronger regulation on deepfakes

The minister also underlined the need to regulate the use of AI-generated content, saying such material should not be generated without the consent of the person whose face, voice or personality is used.

Amidst the growing clamours for regulating the content on social media, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the digital platforms themselves should take responsibility for the content they host.

The minister also added that they should ensure fair revenue sharing with content creators and news organisations while cautioning that innovation will suffer if creators are denied due compensation.

"Platforms must take responsibility for the content that is hosted by them. The online safety of children and all citizens is the responsibility of the platforms," said Vaishnaw while addressing the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) Conclave in New Delhi.

Similarly, Vaishnaw said, every institution is based on the fundamental tenet that mutual trust defines the entire core of the institution. However, the way the world is evolving, that core tenet is under threat, particularly from emerging technologies such as deepfakes that can make people believe in events that never occurred, he said.

He said that the threat could be from a barrage of disinformation, which can create a sense of distrust that does not exist in real life, and synthetically generated pictures of well-respected people in society with absolutely no correlation with reality.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

"And all that so-called news or so-called information, when it reaches the common citizen, the common citizen starts questioning the very basic structure of society. That is the big threat.

"And this is not something that we in India alone are observing. In my interactions with practically every country, every society is struggling with these issues," he said.

The minister also underlined the need to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content, saying such material should not be generated without the consent of the person whose face, voice or personality is used.

"The time has come to make that big inflectional change. I request the platforms to cooperate with this human society's basic needs. The society which is today asking for this change has to be respected," he said.

The union minister also urged digital platforms to realise the importance of reinforcing trust in the institutions that human society has built over thousands of years.

"All these issues require decisive steps today because they are challenging and even destroying the fundamental tenets of our society: trust in institutions built over centuries," he said.

The minister cautioned that non-adherence to basic principles would make digital platforms accountable.

He also underlined the need to regulate the use of AI-generated content, saying such material should not be generated without the consent of the person whose face, voice or personality is used.

Vaishnaw said human society is built on trust in institutions -- from the family and social identity to the judiciary, media and legislature -- all of which operate on the fundamental premise of trust.

Citing the media as an example, the minister said its credibility rests on being unbiased, verifying information before publication and remaining accountable for its content.

The minister said people must realise that the nature of the internet has changed and it is no longer the open-source space that was primarily used to exchange information between different parts of the world.

"Today, it has become a powerful media outlet. And like media organisations, platforms must take responsibility. The time is gone when platforms could say they are not responsible for content. Those times are gone. Platforms have changed from being pure intermediaries to becoming hosts to the world," he said.