New Delhi: The government on Wednesday proposed amendments to IT rules aimed at curbing the spread of AI-generated content, including deepfakes, on social media platforms. The draft mandates clear labelling of synthetic media and increases accountability for major platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp.
The IT Ministry highlighted that deepfake audio, video, and other synthetic content can be “weaponised” to spread misinformation, damage reputations, manipulate elections, or commit financial fraud. The proposed rules define synthetically generated content as material created, modified, or altered using a computer to appear authentic.
Key provisions include labelling AI-generated content with prominent markers covering at least 10% of visual or audio duration, embedding metadata, and obtaining user declarations on synthetic uploads. Platforms with over 50 lakh users must deploy reasonable technical measures to verify content and cannot remove labels.
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “Steps we have taken aim to ensure users get to know whether something is synthetic or real. It is important that users know what they are seeing.”
The Ministry has invited stakeholder comments on the draft by November 6, 2025, with non-compliance potentially impacting platforms’ safe harbour protections.