Rashmika Mandanna deepfake video goes viral, govt calls it ‘dangerous, damaging’

A deepfake video of Animal actor Rashmika Mandanna went viral on Monday and had people calling out for action. A video of a young woman, who resembles Rashmika Mandanna, and is wearing a black outfit is seen entering a lift. This video went viral on Monday and people believed it was really the Pushpa actor till a persona called Abhishek Kumar called it out saying it was fake and legal action needed to be taken. Amitabh Bachchan also reposted this video on social media and wrote “yes, this is a strong case for legal”.

It was a journalist named Abhishek Kumar, who along with posting the deepfake video of Rashmika Mandanna on X, wrote there was “an urgent need for a legal and regulatory framework to deal with deepfake incidents in the country.” Kumar said that the original video is of a British-Indian girl named Zara Patel which was uploaded on October 9.

After seeing this deepfake video, Rashmika Mandanna said she was hurt and scared as well. She wrote on X, “I feel really hurt to share this and have to talk about the deepfake video of me being spread online. Something like this is honestly, extremely scary not only for me, but also for each one of us who today is vulnerable to so much harm because of how technology is being misused. Today, as a woman and as an actor, I am thankful for my family, friends and well-wishers who are my protection and support system.

But if this happened to me when I was in school or college, I genuinely can’t imagine how could I ever tackle this. We need to address this as a community and with urgency before more of us are affected by such identity theft.”

The Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, reposted Kumar’s post and wrote that “PM @narendramodi ji’s government is committed to ensuring Safety and Trust of all DigitalNagriks using Internet.”

He further added, “Under the IT rules notified in April, 2023 – it is a legal obligation for platforms to: ensure no misinformation is posted by any user AND ensure that when reported by any user or govt, misinformation is removed in 36 hours. If platforms do not comply with this, rule 7 will apply and platforms can be taken to court by aggrieved person under provisions of IPC. Deep fakes are latest and even more dangerous and damaging form of misinformation and needs to be dealt with by platforms.”

Deepfake videos are those that are created with the help of artificial intelligence and where faces of people can be digitally manipulated. Even conversations and events that never took place can be created with the help of AI and turned into deepfake videos.