Aiming to make the social media space secure, the government will assist citizens in filing FIR against social media platforms for violation of IT rules in case they are aggrieved from objectionable content like deepfakes.

Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday said the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) will develop a platform on which users can notify about IT rule violation by social media platforms.

While speaking to the media after a meeting with social media platforms, MoS said Meity will assist users to very easily notify it about violation of IT rules and assist them in filing FIRs.

“From today onwards, there is zero tolerance for violation of IT rules,” he said.

The Minister briefed that the FIR will be registered against the intermediary and if they disclose the details from where the content has originated then the FIR will be filed against the entity that has posted the content.

Social media platforms have been given seven days time to align their terms of use, as per the IT rules.

On Thursday, Meity minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said his ministry from time to time, advised social media intermediaries to exercise due diligence and take expeditious action against deepfake.

At a discussion, it was agreed that government, academia, social media companies and NASSCOM will jointly work towards responding to deepfake.

He also mentioned that the MeitY will commence an exercise for assessing and drafting necessary regulations to curb the menace of deepfake. For this purpose, MeitY will invite comments from the public on MyGov portal.

A couple of days back, while addressing the virtual G20 Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also said deepfake is a big concern, and AI (artificial intelligence) has to be safe for the public.

Chandrasekhar said  during the meeting he has urged them that all the platforms must  align and transform their terms of use with their users to be consistent with the 12 areas that are prohibited on the Indian internet.

He said the platforms have agreed in seven days to ensure harmonization and alignment so that every user on every platform is aware that when they use a platform, the platform intends to be a safe and trusted platform.

“We have further informed the platforms that from today onwards, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Government of India will nominate a Rule Seven officer and will take a 100 per cent compliance expectation from all the platforms,” the minister said.

Deepfake has emerged as a serious threat to democracy and social institutions across the world. Propagation of deepfake content via social media platforms has aggravated this challenge.

Deepfake videos targeting some actors and social media influencers in recent weeks have led to concerns over the misuse of AI by criminals.