Did Manish Tewari Too Fall Prey to 'Deepfake'? Cong Leader Shares Ordeal After PM Modi Raises Concern

Congress MP Manish Tewari on Saturday recalled how he had been a victim of ‘deepfake’ back in 2019, when his “political rivals” allegedly circulated a video “morphing” his voice, “abusing various communities”.

The Congress MP from Sri Anandpur Sahib in Punjab took to X (formerly Twitter) and wrote, “The Problem of Deep Fakes is endemic Shri @narendramodi. On 18th May 2019 – one day before polling in the Sri Anandpur Lok Sabha Constituency my political rivals circulated a Deep Fake Video morphing my voice abusing various communities in the most vile terms possible. Guess who was my principal rival?”

The Congress leader’s comments come a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the issue of ‘deepfake’ videos during ‘Diwali Milan’ program at BJP’s central office in New Delhi.

PM Modi on Friday called upon journalists to educate people on ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) and ‘Deep Fake’. “I saw a video recently where I was singing. People who like me forwarded it,” he said.

After a ‘deepfake’ video of actress Rashmika Mandanna that surfaced on social media earlier this month drew wide criticism on the internet, the IT Ministry issued an advisory to curb such incidents.

In its advisory, the IT Ministry directed social media companies to expeditiously take action against the content that is in violation of the rules and regulations well within the timeframes stipulated under the IT Rules 2021, and users are caused not to host such information, content, deepfakes.

“Remove any such content when reported within 36 hours of such reporting and ensure expeditious action, well within the timeframes stipulated under the IT Rules 2021, and disable access to the content or information,” the official statement said.

Meanwhile, Delhi Police registered an FIR in connection with the ’deep fake’ video of actress Rashmika Mandanna and asked Meta to provide the URL of the account from which the video was shared on social media.

An officer privy to the investigations said that the Delhi Police also sought the information of the people who shared the ‘deep fake’ video on social media.

“We have written to Meta to access the URL ID of the account from which the video was generated,” the officer said.

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