Delhi High Court observed that deepfake videos can cause irreparable harm to one’s personality while granting interim relief to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s national spokesperson and senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia by directing social media platforms ‘X’ and YouTube to take down posts, and make videos private that alleged he was “beaten up” by lawyers in a Noida court.
The high court observed Bhatia would face “irreparable loss and injury” if the deepfake videos and tweets were allowed to remain in the public domain. The high court’s concern on Bhatia’s defamation plea is timely when there is concern about deepfakes around the elections.
However, it is pertinent to point out that at least one of the videos which is central to the petition and shows a brawl between lawyers, is not a deepfake and has been previously shared out of context by falsely linking it to Bhatia.
BOOM has debunked several deepfake videos including one where Congress functionaries circulated a deepfake video that was created using an AI voice clone of Bollywood actor Aamir Khan that targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, in another instance, BJP’s IT Cell head Amit Malviya falsely claimed a video of party candidate Dinesh Lal Yadav alias Nirahua making disparaging remarks about Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath being childless, was a deepfake.
IIT Jodhpur Professor Mayank Vatsa, an expert on deepfake, suggested that the evolving technology makes it easier to identify deepfake videos as opposed to proving that a video is not a deepfake.
Deepfake has potential to cause irreparable harm
Justice Neena Bansal Krishna on April 16 said “tweets/memes have a potential of bringing disrepute”. The high court judge’s observations came on Bhatia’s defamation plea which alleged that the videos were “deepfake” and were uploaded with an “ulterior motive”.
Justice Krishna clarified the order is in effect till the pendency of the suit. In his plea, Bhatia had flagged 19 tweets and videos that he claimed were deepfake or defamatory.
In the present case, though Justice Krishna’s observations are on point, some of the videos or tweets submitted have been misidentified as deepfake videos. The other images tweeted appear to be memes or satire made using photoshop, and there appears to be no other digital manipulation in some of the videos.
For example, BOOM on March 24 had fact-checked a video that claimed a group of lawyers allegedly misbehaved with Bhatia. After its investigation, BOOM found that the video was of a 2019 incident when there was a clash between lawyers and Delhi Police at the Tis Hazari Court in Delhi. BOOM confirmed this video has no connection with the BJP spokesperson. The video has not been morphed, edited, or technologically manipulated in any way. This video, which was also submitted in court as defamatory, is not a deepfake.
Advocate Utkarsh Jaiswal, who was part of Bhatia’s legal team, agreed with BOOM’s fact check of the video. In fact, Jaiswal was a witness to the March 20 incident where he recalled that though Bhatia got into a verbal disagreement with some lawyers at a Noida court there was no physical assault.
Deepfakes are essentially videos (and or photos, audio) that have been morphed or manipulated using artificial intelligence tools and readily available material. Like the Aamir Khan video mentioned above. Khan’s voice was cloned using AI technology, whereas, the video that Malviya claimed was deepfake was edited but not using AI and deep learning algorithms. Read BOOM's story to understand more.
Press, media duty-bound to remain truthful while reporting
Delhi High Court observed that while the press and the media are duty-bound to report incidents, it also has a corresponding duty to “remain truthful to the incident.”
The high court’s caution comes after it took exception to YouTube news channels like Naveen Kumar’s Article 19 India, Neelu Vyas’s The News Launcher, and BBI News for spreading misinformation. The high court noted how the videos alleging Bhatia was beaten up is “nothing but an over-sensationalization and depiction of facts which are patently false.”
Prima facie dissemination or playing of such videos has not only caused harm to Bhatia’s reputation but also has the “potential of persistent threat of being aired and used” against him at any time in future,” the high court noted.
Such being the imminent threat of misuse of the videos in future, which are prima facie depicting applicant/plaintiff (Bhatia) in a light which may not be the true facts, is liable to be restrained from being kept in the public domain till the Suit is finally decided,” the judge said.