Two A-list Bollywood stars in India are shown denouncing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urging people to vote for the opposition Congress party in the country’s impending general election in fictitious films that have gone popular on the internet.
Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh, two Bollywood celebrities, are shown in two 30-second videos allegedly criticizing Prime Minister Modi for not fulfilling campaign pledges and neglecting to solve important economic challenges during his two years in office.
“Vote for Justice, Vote for Congress” is the campaign slogan and Congress election emblem that concludes both AI-generated videos.
Since last week, the two videos have received over 500,000 views on social media, according to a Reuters analysis.
Their widespread distribution highlights the possible impact that material produced by artificial intelligence (AI) might have on the massive Indian election that got underway on Friday and will go until June. Elections in other parts of the world, such as the US, Pakistan, and Indonesia, are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-generated fakes, or deepfakes.
Door-to-door canvassing and public gatherings have long been the mainstays of Indian politics; nevertheless, the widespread use of Facebook and WhatsApp as tools for campaigning began in 2019. AI is being employed for the first time in this year’s general election, where Modi is predicted to win an uncommon third term.
On April 17, Sujata Paul, a Congress spokeswoman, shared actor Singh’s video with her 16,000 followers on X. By Saturday afternoon, her post had gotten 438,000 views, 2,900 reshares, and 8,700 likes.
Paul spoke with Reuters over the phone and said that she knew X had labeled the video as “manipulated media,” but she didn’t want to remove it since, at the time of publishing, she believed the individual looked a lot like Singh and “it has creativity for sure.”
On Sunday, the post vanished from X, shortly after Reuters had contacted the head of Congress’s social media unit for comment, to which they had not replied.
According to both actors, the videos are phony. According to Facebook, X, and at least eight fact-checking websites, the content has been edited or distorted; this has also been verified by the Reuters digital verification team.
Reuters was unable to identify the creators of the videos. A representative for both performers said that Khan was “alarmed” by the widely shared “fake” film and that Singh’s team was investigating the situation. On Friday, Singh posted on X, warning pals to be wary of deepfakes.
Requests for response were not answered by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT chief or Modi’s office.
An average Indian spends more than three hours a day on social media, according to a poll by the business school Indian Institute of Management and research group Esya Centre, which found that almost 900 million people in the country had access to the Internet. There are around one billion voters in the nation.
At least 14 of the videos were still playable on X on Saturday, despite some of them being restricted on social media. Facebook retained one of the two films that Reuters reported to the firm, but removed the other.
Facebook claimed in a statement that it has “removed the videos” due to their breaking its rules. X did not reply to questions from Reuters.
The films have prompted a police investigation, and on April 17, Khan filed a complaint in Mumbai against anonymous individuals for allegedly impersonating and deceiving in order to produce the fictitious video.
A request for comment from Mumbai police was not answered; nonetheless, two unnamed officials handling Khan’s case claimed to have written to Facebook and X to have the video removed, and the firms had replied that it had been done.
According to the cops, they were checking websites till two in the morning on Friday to see if Khan’s recordings had been taken down. Regarding the case’s advancement, one of them responded, “Such technical investigations take time.”
Politicians are utilizing AI in different ways throughout this year’s election.
According to a spokesman for Congress leader Vijay Vasanth in southern India, his team used artificial intelligence (AI) to construct a two-minute audio-video tape that was posted on social media platforms. The movie depicts Vasanthakumar, his father, a well-known but deceased politician, pleading for votes on his behalf.
“My soul is still around, even though my body left you all,” the late statesman is heard stating.
Samata, an AI-generated anchor clad in a traditional saree and speaking in a way close to ordinary news networks, attacks the governing party in West Bengal state in films posted on YouTube by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM).
The anchor claims in one clip that the party doesn’t care about the environment because so many water bodies have disappeared as a result of unpermitted building.
A representative for the ruling party refuted the claim, stating that the state administration had taken steps to prevent any building of such kind. Comment inquiries received no response from the CPM.
Anchor Samata states in the 12,000-view video that “these are questions that we the citizens of this city need to ponder over.”
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