BENGALURU: Actor Rashmika Mandanna woke up to a rude shock on Nov 6, when she came across a morphed video of herself trending on social media. Created using machine learning tech, the video, popularly dubbed as ‘deepfake’, featured Mandanna’s face superimposed atop the body of a UK-based model. In a statement posted on social media, Mandanna said she found the experience ‘extremely scary’ and labelled it as a ‘great misuse of tech’.
Meanwhile, the reactions from Mandanna’s fellow actors and netizens alike were telling. Amitabh Bachchan called for legal action against the creators of the said video, while others argued for a regulatory framework to govern the technology’s ethical use. Actor Kajol Chugh reflects a sense of violation, having chosen not to view the video to avoid adding to its virality. “I am deeply disturbed by this incident.
I’m sure it went viral in the first place because she’s a popular actor. I don’t know the extent to which this technology is being misused, but I’m also sure that there are other such media which haven’t gone viral,” she shares, adding, “It seems like a horrifying time to live in, but I don’t know what an approach to combat this would look like. The government could step in and regulate it, but it may come with its own problems. However, the platforms which host such content have a responsibility to stop their spread. So do the people who consume such content. I understand that being public figures, we sort of become ‘public property’ in a way, but we already give so much of ourselves to the fans, through our art, but these incidents should never be encouraged.”
The underlying technology behind the viral video has existed for nearly half a decade now and has seen several positive uses, most prominently in the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II’s 2020 Christmas address. It has also been used in Hollywood and Indian films, generally for ‘de-aging’ older actors. However, experts in the field have been raising alarms about the tech’s increasing misuse over the years. Even as the technology has become ever more accessible, virtually no regulatory framework exists in India to combat its threats to individual privacy as well as its uses in misinformation.
Singer MD Pallavi points out the core of the issue: consent. The emotional response to the video isn’t just about its content, but the fundamental right to one’s image and the decision to share it. “It’s extremely problematic and I feel bad for Rashmika, and also the other person involved, whose body was morphed. It doesn’t matter what is happening in the video, what matters is whether the person featured in it has consented to it. There is a need for strict regulations on the technology’s uses. It’s obviously complicated and I may not be the right person to say how it should be done. But the important factor is if a person’s likeness is being used without their explicit consent, it shouldn’t be okay.”
Similarly, actor Priya Mani, who stumbled upon the video, sheds light on the experience one’s loved ones might go through with such incidents. “If you think from the perspectives of the people involved, it is horrendous. Imagine being a family member of an affected person and coming across such videos. It’s unimaginable. I hope some sort of legal action is taken and also that all the platforms that currently have the video take it down,” she says, adding, “The advances in technology are obviously good, but incidents like these make me wish that humanity was still in the Stone Age. I knew that morphing images was possible, but I was genuinely taken aback that videos could be morphed as well.”