Deepfakes und KI-Tricks stören die größte Wahl der Geschichte – Fast eine Milliarde Wähler werden Indiens nächste Regierung wählen. Wird die Zukunft des Landes von Desinformation geprägt sein?

> IN FEBRUARY THIS YEAR, a post on X set off a virtual storm in India. When Google’s AI tool Gemini was asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a fascist, it said he was “accused of implementing policies some experts have characterised as fascist.”
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> Referring to Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, Gemini added that “these accusations are based on a number of factors, including the BJP’s Hindu nationalist ideology, its crackdown on dissent, and its use of violence against religious minorities.” By contrast, as the social media post detailed, when similar questions were posed about former US president Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, there was reportedly no clear answer.
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> A Google spokesperson responded shortly after the incident to say: “We’ve worked quickly to address this issue. Gemini is built as a creativity and productivity tool and may not always be reliable, especially when it comes to responding to some prompts about current events, political topics, or evolving news. This is something that we’re constantly working on improving.”
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> The issue didn’t stop there. Reacting to the original social media post, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and IT, posted that this was a direct violation of India’s intermediary IT rules and of several provisions of the Criminal Code. The post was marked to Google AI, Google India, and the ministry of electronics and IT. Following Google’s clarification, he responded with another post stressing the same point and saying platforms were not exempt from the law.
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> What does India’s ongoing national election mean for the citizens of the country in a highly engaged virtual space? More than half of Indians are reportedly active internet users, a figure set to reach 900 million by 2025. The election is being held from April 19 to June 1 in seven phases, and the results will be announced on June 4.
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> The government has made it clear they see AI-generated deepfakes as a big problem. At the start of this election year, Chandrasekhar said India had “woken up earlier” than other countries to the danger posed by deepfakes because of the size of its online population. He also warned that social media companies would be held accountable, in compliance with “very clear and explicit rules,” for any AI-generated “deepfakes” posted on their platforms.
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> Ironically, political parties themselves have been using deepfakes and AI in aggressive pre-election campaigning, ranging from multilingual public addresses and personalized video messages to lifelike videos of deceased leaders. While not strictly nefarious in intent, AI deepfakes are a key part of India’s elections in 2024, a year in which this massive nation of more than 1.43 billion people will vote for the government they want to see for the next five years.
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> Against this crucial backdrop, two challenges have remained clear for journalists in India. One is the view that India is a misinformation magnet and that deepfakes should now be treated as a stand-alone and more dangerous problem within that field. The other one is that the response to misinformation has been to introduce increasingly heavy-handed laws that threaten to curb freedom of speech and place onerous demands on journalists and platforms.