Legal experts have welcomed the government’s amended guidelines on AI-generated deepfakes, saying that social media intermediaries will be happy with the reasonable efforts expectation rather than the earlier proposed visible labelling.

The IT Ministry has issued updated guidelines for social media intermediaries like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, directing them to clearly label all AI-generated content and ensure that such synthetic material carries embedded identifiers.

The MeitY amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, allows regulators and the government to monitor and control synthetically generated information (SGI), including deepfakes. AI-generated or altered content is to be labelled or identified, either through visible disclosures or embedded metadata, so that a user views and consumes content in an informed manner.

“Interestingly, the amendments narrow the scope of what is to be flagged, compared to the earlier draft released by MeitY, with a focus on misleading content rather than everything that has been artificially or algorithmically created, generated, modified or altered,” said Sajai Singh, Partner, JSA Advocates & Solicitors.

On the other hand, the government has set a three-hour deadline for social media platforms to take down AI-generated deepfake content, from an earlier 36-hour deadline, once it is flagged by the government or ordered by a court.

“I think intermediaries will be happy with the reasonable efforts expectation rather than the earlier proposed visible labelling,” said Singh.

The revised norms also bar digital platforms from allowing the removal or suppression of AI labels or associated metadata once they have been applied. The social media companies will be required to deploy automated tools to detect and prevent the circulation of illegal, sexually exploitative or deceptive AI-generated content, according to the latest MeitY order.