Mumbai, November 7
Actors Mrunal Thakur, Naga Chaitanya and singer Chinmayi Sripada are the latest cinema personalities to voice support for Rashmika Mandanna after the ‘Pushpa: The Rise’ star’s deepfake video went viral on social media over the weekend.
Mandanna’s ‘Goodbye’ co-star Amitabh Bachchan was the first to react after a fact checker posted the deepfake clip along with the original video of a British-Indian social media personality Zara Patel and emphasised the need for a legal and regulatory framework to deal with deepfakes in India.
Patel, on whose body Mandanna’s face was morphed, also condemned the deepfake video and said she had “no involvement” with the clip.
“Hi all, it has come to my attention that someone created a deepfake video using my body and a popular Bollywood actress’s face. I had no involvement with the deepfake video, and I’m deeply disturbed and upset by what is happening,” the model wrote on her Instagram story on Monday night.
“I worry about the future of women and girls who now have to fear even more about putting themselves on social media. Please take a step back and fact-check what you see on the internet. Not everything on the internet is real. I’m deeply upset by what is happening,” Patel added in her story.
“Loan apps harass women borrowers with photoshopped images of their faces over porn photos and they can’t deal with that. But a deepfake is going to be tougher for the usual untrained eye to spot. Everyone doesn’t have high-res displays,” the singer wrote on X.
Several months ago, a deepfake clip of actor Simran’s AI avatar performing to ‘Kaavaalaa’ from ‘Jailer’ was circulating online, she added.
“Nobody knows for sure whether Ms Simran had consented in advance to her likeness to be used in the deepfake AI rendering of Kaavaalaa,” she shared it on her social media pages as well.
“I truly hope there is a nationwide awareness campaign that can kickstart urgently to educate the general public about the dangers of deepfakes for girls and to report incidents instead of taking matters into their own hands,” Chinmayi further said.
