Lok Sabha 2024: Google steps up efforts to tackle deepfakes, gen AI content ahead of general elections

Google has begun to roll out restrictions on the types of election-related queries for which Gemini chatbot will return responses in India.

Lately, there has been a spurt in deepfake videos and generative Artificial Intelligence (gen AI)-produced synthetic content on the web.

Cyber mercenaries are available for hire on the web. They misuse technology to malign high-profile people such as politicians, movie actors, and others just so that the victim loses popularity just before elections or a movie and is deprived of opportunities in the future.

With Lok Sabha elections just weeks away, Google India has announced several measures to tackle misleading content on Google Search, YouTube and other services.

Search engine giant is collaborating with the Election Commission of India (ECI) to help citizens discover critical voting information on Google Search - such as how to register, how to vote and Lok Sabha constituency candidate details. It will be available two languages-- English and Hindi.

On YouTube too, Google will ensure genuine content from authoritative sources is easily available on the homepage, in search results, and the 'Up Next' panel.

It will also showcase high-quality content from authoritative news sources during key moments, through the Top News and Breaking News shelves, and news watch page.

Google will also reveal the income sources of those news organisations and also mention if they are run by any government organisation or private individuals or companies.

To curb the misinformation campaign against EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines), YouTube will also show the Election Commission's FAQs on the technical and administrative safeguards of electronic voting.

Google has a dedicated team of human reviewers and experts across all major Indian languages and is working 24X7 for early detection and elimination of gen AI-based synthetic content on all its platforms.

Additionally, it also has a state-of-the-art machine learning model that can quickly identify and remove content that violates the policies in areas such as manipulated content, incitement to violence, hate speech and harassment.

Recently, Google Gemini AI chatbot came under fire over inaccurate results related to historical facts and photos.

To avoid any controversies, Google will restrict the Gemini bot to respond to queries related to general elections, political parties and their candidates.

"Out of an abundance of caution on such an important topic, we have begun to roll out restrictions on the types of election-related queries for which Gemini will return responses. We take our responsibility for providing high-quality information for these types of queries seriously, and are continuously working to improve our protections," Google said in a blog post.

As per Rule 3(2)(b) of the Information Technology Rules, it is the duty of Google, Meta, X (formerly Twitter) and other social media platform owners to take down any mischievous and defamatory content within 36 hours (or earliest) after filing a complaint.

Those who are responsible for creating such fake videos with impersonation technology (such as the deepfake) by using a computer and related gadgets, are punishable with up to three years of imprisonment and pay a fine up to Rs 1 lakh, under Section 66D of the IT Act.

Even for non-election related gen AI-generated content, the publishers have to mandatorily put labels and disclose explicitly about the content to ensure transparency on its platforms.

And, every artificially generated content from Google products will come with Google DeepMind’s SynthID watermark.

Besides India, 2024 will witness elections in the United States, and state legislative elections in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and several European Union regions, Asia, North America, South America and Africa.

Google has announced collaboration with other major technology companies to help prevent deceptive AI-generated imagery, audio or video content from interfering with this year’s global elections.

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