Deepfakes of Bollywood stars raise concerns

Deepfakes of Bollywood stars raise concerns over use of AI in elections

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Deepfakes of Bollywood stars raise concerns over use of AI in elections, In a fake video that has gone viral online, two of India’s A-lister Bollywood actors are seen criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asking people to vote for the opposition Congress party in the ongoing general elections in the country.


In the 30-second video which features a 41-second clip of Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh, the two Bollywood actors reportedly say that PM Modi failed to fulfill his campaign promises and his tenure as Prime Minister Failed to address important economic issues during two terms.

Both the AI-generated videos end with the Congress election symbol and the slogan: “Vote for justice, vote for Congress”. A Reuters review shows both videos have been viewed more than half a million times on social media since last week.


Their proliferation underscores the potential role AI-generated content could play in the huge Indian election, which began on Friday and continues through June. AI and AI-generated spoofs or deepfakes are increasingly being used in elections elsewhere in the world, including the US, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Congress spokesperson Sujatha Paul shared actor Singh’s video with her 16,000 followers on Instagram on April 17 and by Saturday afternoon; her post had been reshared 2,900 times, liked 8,700 times and viewed 438,000 times.

Paul told Reuters by telephone that she was aware the video had been marked by X as “manipulated media”, but she did not want to remove it because at the time of posting she thought the man looked like a lion. And “There’s definitely creativity in this”.

Reuters could not determine who made the video. According to a spokesperson for both the actors, Khan was “concerned” by the viral “fake” video and Singh’s team was looking into the matter. Singh wrote on X on Friday: “Beware of deepfakes, guys”.

PM Modi’s office and his Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT chief did not respond to requests for comment.

Some versions of the videos have been blocked on social media but at least 14 were still visible on X on Saturday. Facebook removed two videos flagged to the company by Reuters but another was still visible.

Facebook said in a statement that it had “removed the videos” for violating its policies. X did not respond to Reuters questions.

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