NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has protected the personality rights of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and directed social media platform ‘X’ to take down an AI-generated deepfake video purportedly showing him praising Pakistan’s diplomacy.
Justice Mini Pushkarna, in an interim order passed on Tharoor’s lawsuit, also restrained the misappropriation of the Thiruvananthapuram MP’s name, image, distinct voice, and other facets of persona to create and publish any fake videos for commercial, political, or malicious purposes across any medium.
The court also asked Meta to ensure that certain offending reels on Instagram, which it made inaccessible, continue to remain so.
Tharoor earlier moved the court against the repeated publication of deepfake videos purportedly showing him making “politically sensitive” statements. His counsel asserted that such content not only tarnished his reputation but also affected India’s international standing.
Justice Pushkarna said Tharoor is a “respected public figure”, who has “exclusive control” over the utilisation of his personality, and misappropriation of any attribute of his personality without his express permission and any consequent harm to his reputation is liable to be restrained.
The court clarified that in case of further “ fake and infringing videos”, Tharoor shall be at liberty to approach the social media platforms for taking them down.