Deepfake distortion: Has Indian politics fallen prey to it?
Summary
- While deepfake worries predate Indian elections, fresh concerns have been sparked by recent video clips of politicians. Can we expect people to be duly sceptical of what they see and hear online?
Worries of deepfakes spreading misinformation predate Indian elections. Those who feared no escape from them may have turned out prescient. A Parliamentarian from Karnataka of the Janata Dal (Secular) who has been mired in a sexual-assault controversy on account of a video clip has claimed himself to be the victim of a digitally-crafted fake.
Separately, home minister Amit Shah has rejected as fake a clip that seems to show him promising an end to reservations for caste groups with quotas; a police case has even led to a few arrests of people said to have opposition links. Forensic tools exist to detect digital concoctions, but damage could be done if people do not or cannot discern what’s probably true or false, which also explains their unethical use for political manipulation.
While untruths in usual times would not need to be dignified with responses, big distortions in a tech-warped world are a serious menace. They can put even self-assured politicians in defensive mode. Policing deepfakes may prove inadequate. At the end, we can only hope that people at large get more discerning and sceptical of what they see and hear on their digital devices. That’s not asking for too much, is it?
