Two A-list Bollywood actors in India are seen criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urging people to vote for the opposition Congress party in the country’s ongoing general election in fictitious videos that have gone viral on the internet.
Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh, two Bollywood actors, are shown in two 30-second videos allegedly criticizing Prime Minister Modi for not fulfilling campaign promises and neglecting to address important economic issues during his two terms in office.
Both AI-generated videos end with the Congress election symbol and slogan: “Vote for Justice, Vote for Congress.”
The two videos have been viewed on social media more than half a million times since last week, a Reuters review shows.
Their spread underlines the potential role such AI (artificial intelligence)-generated content can play in the mammoth Indian election that started on Friday and will continue until June. AI and AI-generated fakes, or deepfakes, are being increasingly used in elections elsewhere in the world, including in the US, Pakistan and Indonesia.
Campaigning in India has long focused on door-to-door outreach and public rallies, but extensive use of WhatsApp and Facebook as campaigning tools started in 2019. This year’s general election — in which Modi is expected to secure a rare third term — is the first in which AI is being used.
On April 17, Sujata Paul, a Congress spokesperson, shared actor Singh’s video with her 16,000 followers on X. By Saturday afternoon, her post had received 438,000 views, 2,900 reshares, and 8,700 likes.
Paul spoke with Reuters over the phone and acknowledged that X had labeled the video as “manipulated media,” but she chose to leave it up because, at the time of posting, she thought the person looked a lot like Singh and that “it has creativity for sure.”
On Sunday, the post vanished from X, shortly after Reuters had contacted the head of Congress’s social media cell for comment, to which they had not replied.
Both actors have said the videos are fake. Facebook, X and at least eight fact-checking websites have said they are altered or manipulated, which the Reuters digital verification unit has also confirmed.
Reuters could not ascertain who created the videos. Khan was “alarmed” by the viral “fake” video and Singh’s team was looking into the matter, according to a spokesperson for both actors. Singh wrote on X on Friday: “Beware of deepfakes, friends.”
Modi’s office, and the IT head of his Bharatiya Janata Party, did not respond to requests for comment.
POLICE PROBE
An average Indian spends more than three hours a day on social media, according to a survey by the business school Indian Institute of Management and research organization Esya Center. Almost 900 million people in India have access to the Internet. There are almost one billion voters in the nation.
At least 14 of the videos were still playable on X on Saturday, despite some of them being blocked on social media. Facebook retained one of the two videos that Reuters reported to the company, but removed the other.
Facebook in a statement said it has “removed the videos” for violation of its policies. X did not respond to Reuters queries.
The videos have sparked one police investigation with Khan registering a case in Mumbai against unnamed persons on April 17 for alleged impersonation and cheating for creating the fake video.
Mumbai police did not return a request for comment, but two officers working on Khan’s case, who declined to be named, said they wrote to Facebook and X to take down the video and the companies had said it was done.
The officers said they were up until 2 a.m. on Friday, refreshing pages to check if Khan’s online videos were removed. Asked about progress in the case, one of them said: “Such technical investigations take time.”
AI VIDEO OF DEAD FATHER
In this year’s election, politicians are using AI in other ways.
In southern India, Congress leader Vijay Vasanth’s spokesperson said his team has created a 2-minute audio-video clip using AI that was shared on social media platforms and shows his now dead but more popular politician father, H. Vasanthakumar, seeking votes for him.
The late politician is seen saying “even though my body left you all, my soul is still around.”
Samata, an AI-generated anchor dressed in a traditional saree and speaking in a style akin to regular news channels, criticizes the ruling party in West Bengal state in videos posted on YouTube by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM).
The anchor claims in one clip that the party doesn’t care about the environment because so many water bodies have disappeared as a result of unpermitted construction.
A representative for the ruling party refuted the claim, stating that the state government has taken steps to prevent any construction of that kind. Comment requests received no response from the CPM.
In the video, which has been seen 12,000 times, anchor Samata declares: “These are questions that we the citizens of this city need to ponder over.”
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