In viral fake videos, two Indian Bollywood actors criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urge people to vote for the opposition Congress party in the country’s ongoing general elections, Reuters reports.
Aamir Khan in a 30-second video and Ranveer Singh in a 41-second clip allegedly claim that Modi has failed to keep election promises and address critical economic issues during his two terms as prime minister. Both the videos, created by artificial intelligence (AI), end with the Congress election symbol and slogan:
Vote for Justice, Vote for Congress.
According to Reuters, the two videos have been viewed over half a million times on social media since last week. Their circulation highlights the potential role that such AI-generated content could play in India’s elections, launched on Friday and running until June.
Artificial intelligence and the fakes (deepfakes) it creates are being utilised increasingly in elections elsewhere in the world, including in the US, Pakistan, and Indonesia. This year’s general election, in which Modi is expected to win a rare third term, will be the first to use AI.
Congress spokesperson Sujata Paul shared the Singh actor’s video with her 16,000 subscribers on X on April 17, with views reaching around 440,000. The video was labelled by X as “manipulated media” but Paul did not delete it, considering that “it has creativity for sure.”
The post was no longer visible on X on Sunday. Both actors claimed the video was a fake. Facebook, X and at least eight fact-checking websites stated it was altered or manipulated.
Nearly 900 million people in India have access to the Internet, and a survey by the Esya Centre, a research organisation, and the Indian Institute of Management business school found that the average Indian spends more than three hours a day on social media. The country has nearly one billion voters.
Some versions of the videos have been blocked on social media, but at least 14 of them were still visible on X on Saturday. The videos triggered a police investigation in which Khan filed a case in Mumbai on April 17 against unnamed persons on charges of impersonation and cheating for creating the fake video.
In this year’s elections, politicians are using AI in other ways. In south India, Congress leader Vijay Vasanth’s spokesperson reported that his team created a two-minute AI-aided audio-video clip that was posted on social media platforms showing his deceased father, politician H. Vasanthakumar, soliciting votes for him.
In videos posted on YouTube by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), an AI-generated ancor Samata criticises the ruling party in West Bengal state. In one of the videos, the anchor claims that the party does not care about the environment as many water bodies have disappeared due to illegal construction.
A spokesperson of the ruling party denied the allegations and argued that the state government had ensured that no such construction took place.
