The 2024 Elections certainly has been about artificial intelligence and deepfakes, which surely has created misinformation among people.

To avoid all of them, the Election Commission of India has sent a letter to all national and state political parties, instructing them to take down any deepfakes within three hours of being notified.

It has also instructed them to not use their social media handles to publish deepfake videos and audios, or to disseminate any misinformation or synthetically created or modified information that may appear to be true to the recipient. Parties have also been instructed to identify and warn the party person responsible for posting deepfakes.

This notice to all parties comes a week after a BJP delegation, led by current IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, approached the Election Commission to demand "urgent measures required to address the impact of deep fakes on the electoral process". The poll body has not restrained political parties from using any technological or AI-based tools; it has only restrained them from using such tools that "distort information or spreads misinformation, which resultantly lowers the standards of electioneering".

"The use of such manipulated, distorted, edited content on social media platforms has the potential to wrongfully sway voter opinions, deepen societal divisions, and erode trust in electioneering process by attacking laid out instrumentalities of the electoral steps in terms of means and material," the EC said in its letter. It also said that "forwarding/re-sharing/re-posting/re-tweeting" on social media platforms makes the spread of misinformation "dangerously unrestrained".

It is not clear what will constitute as being "notified" for a political party. Will the EC need to inform the party or can a normal citizen do so as well?

The EC has instructed political parties to not impersonate another person, including political parties or their representatives, on social media. It is not clear how satirical and parody accounts would be treated.

To read the detailed report https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/remove-deepfakes-within-3-hours-of-being-notified-election-commission-to-political-parties-101715023235465-amp.html