Deep fake narratives disturbing trend, can mar elections: CEC

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 23

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar today flagged “deep fake narratives” to elections in India and abroad as a disturbing trend saying several “disruptive elements” made attempts to alter public perception and mislead people by repetitively presenting falsehood as facts.

Addressing a conference organised by the Election Commission (EC) here on the “Use of Technology and Elections Integrity”, Kumar suggested social media platforms should use their algorithm power and AI to detect deepfakes “proactively”, especially in jurisdictions such as India where electoral cycles were definite and well announced.

Kumar, according to an EC statement, also raised concerns over level-playing field not being in-built in platforms’ search results to at least show officially verified versions with the same prominence as fake content. “The CEC used enforcement agencies’ analogy to put onus on social media platforms to detect deep fakes proactively. He said that it is difficult to imagine if the enforcement agencies say that they would not act unless crime is reported to them; intelligence prevention is not their responsibility,” the statement read.

The CEC also flagged questions such as whose primary responsibility it was to identify “blatant and system detectable” fake content and prevent these from getting uploaded and circulated on social media platforms.

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