Proposed AI content rules test social media's limits

The central government's proposed amendment to the Information Technology (IT) Rules — mandating labels and disclaimers for all artificially generated content — could raise compliance costs and burdens for social media intermediaries, industry executives and policy experts said.

- AASHISH ARYAN

The amendments aim to curb the spread of harmful and “reasonably authentic” deepfake images, audio, and videos, according to senior government officials.

“We have held several meetings with major tech companies, which have assured us that they possess the technical know-how and necessary tools to combat this issue. If there are any specific concerns, we will identify them during the consultation period,” a senior official from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) said.

Executives from social media firms and policy experts, however, said that simply labelling or embedding metadata in artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content is unlikely to solve the problem.

“The obligations are easy to write into the rules but very difficult to implement technically — and even easier to circumvent. A nontechnical person can generate such content and remove a watermark, label, or disclaimer within minutes,” said a senior executive at a social media company.

Another executive said the government’s proposed requirement that AI disclaimers or labels cover at least 10 percent of a content’s area would interfere with user experience and increase page loading and landing times across platforms.