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Deepfakes and influencers: The digital election in India

Published

4 months ago

May 14, 2024

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Divyendra Jadoun is proud of his professional alias: the Indian Deepfaker.

“I know we do deepfakes,” he tells Sky News. “Why would I use something else?”

And Jadoun’s services have been in demand recently, as India holds elections – often billed as the biggest democratic election on the planet.

Deepfakes have been a feature, in some surprising ways. On occasion, they have been malicious. Bollywood actors have been falsely depicted criticising PM Narendra Modi, or endorsing a political party.

Jadoun says: “We received a lot of requests, from November, October. And out of those requests, around 45 to 50% requests were for unethical [deepfakes]. And these are two kinds of requests.

“One is to swap the face of the political leader and put it into some controversial video that might harm his image. The second type of unethical [deepfake] is to create the clone of, the voice of the opponent leader and make him say something that he has never said.”

“This is the first time that we are going to see the deployment of deepfakes on a large scale. Even for us, it’s a new thing.

“We do not know how much it will impact or whether it will have an impact or not.”

Others point to the low numbers of views those deepfake videos tend to receive, along with the speed at which they get debunked – and say that the impact of deepfakes has been, perhaps unexpectedly, positive.

“There was a fear that deepfake type of things would be more used for adversarial content, whereas what we are seeing is the opposite,” explains Joyojeet Pal, associate professor of information at the University of Michigan.

“The artificially generated content is much more being used by the campaigns of politicians in their own interest.”

Witness the resurrection of M Karunanidhi, a politician who died in 2018. A deepfake of him was created by technologist Senthil Nayagam and subsequently put on the campaign trail, endorsing various candidates.

“We accidentally started the trend with this video,” Nayagam tells Sky News.

The Indian Deepfaker has worked on another system that shows the potential innovation of deepfakes.

“We are doing a conversational agent where you will get a call in the voice of a leader. It will be saying that I am an AI-generated avatar of this leader, and he will be taking the name of the person,” he says.

“He will be asking ‘What are your local issues in your area?’ or ‘What are your suggestions to the government?’ – and every call will be recorded.

“It will then be transcribed and it will be filtered out based on different questions, so that the government or the political parties can make manifestos or can create schemes according to the problem.”

There are still pitfalls. Jadoun is worried about deepfakes spreading through the messaging system WhatsApp rather than the open internet, where they are easier to debunk. WhatsApp is where more traditional misinformation has spread, according to Amber Sinha.

“I think it’s also been early days, in terms of [the deepfake] use case in India,” he tells Sky News.

“There have been other modes of content, for instance, doctored images, Photoshopped images that have been prevalent, particularly on WhatsApp groups, for much longer in India.”

WhatsApp is, for many people in India, simply the internet. Platforms that dominate in other democracies remain niche. Take ad spending on Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram (and WhatsApp, although it doesn’t show ads).

The ruling BJP is clearly dominating, according to the data provided by Who Targets Me. But compare that to US spending.

The US isn’t even holding an election – at least not yet – and it is comfortably outspending India.

And Pal argues that other platforms have now caught up with WhatsApp.

“WhatsApp groups were the big player in the fairly recent elections as well,” he says. “YouTube is either at par or more important than WhatsApp right now.”

The most novel digital development of this election, he argues, is the emergence of YouTube influencers.

Earlier this month, for example, Curly Tales, a food blogger with more than three million followers, featured the chief minister of Maharashtra on her channel. And politicians have been making concerted attempts to woo influencers across the board.

“The most surprising thing about the campaign has been the emergence of digital influencers over professional journalists as the interviewers in the campaigns themselves,” Pal says.

“As opposed to a professional journalist who might be fairly educated about policy and can ask a politician aggressive questions about what is or is not working about their platform, a digital influencer doesn’t have that ability.”

For all the innovation, deepfakes and influencers do perhaps open up an information gap – one where doubt and misinformation can spread, inadvertently or not.

World

Israeli president’s denial goes further than official response – but it doesn’t tally with background talks

Published

15 hours ago

September 22, 2024

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Israeli president's denial goes further than official response – but it doesn't tally with background talks

President Isaac Herzog’s outright denial that Israel was behind the attacks on Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies goes further than the official Israel government response which, so far, has been to say nothing at all.

It’s not unusual for Israel to remain silent after major attacks on its enemies, and guilt is generally assumed by the absence of comment, but Herzog was definitive, saying he “rejects out of hand any connection to this or that source of operation”.

That does not square with background conversations I’ve had with political and security officials here in recent days.

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Admittedly no one has confessed outright, however discussion of the attacks and the potential consequences, are generally framed by a metaphorical nod and wink, and conversations had proceeded along the lines of ‘we all know what happened, even if we’re going to dance around it’.

Herzog might be right to suggest Hezbollah has other enemies, but aside from the US, which has repeatedly denied even knowing about the attacks ahead of time, I can not think of another state that would have the capability, will and purpose to carry out those attacks.

As one serving Western intelligence official remarked to me a few days ago, “None of us would dare do it because of the collateral damage”.

No one, not even Israel, has come up with an alternative culprit.

The timing of the attacks, were it not Israel, are too coincidental.

This came around the same time Israel announced it was entering a new phase in the north and then launched multiple heavy barrages of Lebanon, including a massive air strike in southern Beirut.

World

Fire rips through arms depot deep inside Russia after huge Ukrainian drone attack – as Zelenskyy prepares to meet Trump

Published

1 day ago

September 21, 2024

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Fire rips through arms depot deep inside Russia after huge Ukrainian drone attack - as Zelenskyy prepares to meet Trump

A fire has ripped through a Russian missile depot in the Tver region deep inside the country after it was targeted in a Ukrainian drone attack, the defence ministry in Moscow has said.

Footage shows a second Ukrainian drone attack on the southwestern Russian region of Krasnodar also triggered a fire and caused a series of explosions.

Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its forces shot down 101 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory and occupied Crimea during the overnight attacks.

The drone strikes were carried out as Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskky said he is hoping to meet Donald Trump next week when he travels to the US – where he will present US President Joe Biden with a “victory plan” in relation to the war.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister said Russia appears to be planning strikes on Ukrainian nuclear facilities before the winter.

Posts on local Telegram channels said a Ukrainian drone attack struck an arms depot near the town of Toropets, in Russia’s Tver region – which is about 380 kilometres (240 miles) northwest of Moscow and about 500 kilometres (300 miles) from the Ukrainian border on Saturday.

Russian authorities closed a 100-kilometre (62-mile) stretch of a highway and evacuated passengers from a nearby rail station.

The depot appeared to be just miles from a Russian weapons arsenal storing missiles, bombs and ammunition in Tver that was struck by Ukrainian drones early Wednesday, injuring 13 people and also causing a huge fire.

Meanwhile, at least 1,200 people were evacuated from Russia’s southwestern Krasnodar region after an ammunition depot and missile arsenal were struck in the second drone attack overnight, the local governor has said.

Most of those evacuated were staying with friends and relatives, Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Krasnodar region, said on the Telegram messaging app.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in either Tver or Krasnodar.

Ukraine warning of attacks on nuclear sites

It comes as Kyiv is urging the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Ukraine’s allies to establish permanent monitoring missions at the country’s nuclear plants as it warns they could be targeted in Russian attacks.

“In particular, it concerns open distribution devices at (nuclear power plants and) transmission substations, critical for the safe operation of nuclear energy,” foreign minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on X.

Zelenskyy prepares for US trip

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian leader has said he plans to meet Republican presidential candidate Mr Trump on either Thursday or Friday next week.

During the trip, Mr Zelenskyy will present Mr Biden with a so-called victory plan as he hopes to bring about an end to the conflict.

The Ukrainian president has said the plan will include long-range striking capabilities and other weapons long sought by Kyiv, and will serve as the basis for any future negotiation with Russia.

He is also expected to push Washington to lift restrictions on long-range missile strikes inside Russia.

Mr Zelenskyy will attend sessions of the UN Security Council and General Assembly and also plans to meet vice president Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate in this year’s US election, in separate meetings on 26 September.

The developments come as three sources have told Reuters that Iran did not include mobile launchers with the close-range ballistic missiles that Washington has accused Tehran of delivering to Russia for use against Ukraine.

The sources – a European diplomat, a European intelligence official and a US official – said it was not clear why Iran did not supply launchers with the Fath-360 missiles, raising questions about when and if the weapons will be operational.

World

At least 44 people killed in Israel strikes on Lebanon and Gaza in last 24 hours

Published

1 day ago

September 21, 2024

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At least 44 people killed in Israel strikes on Lebanon and Gaza in last 24 hours

At least 44 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon and Gaza in the last 24 hours.

A strike on the Lebanese capital Beirut killed at least 31 people including three children and seven women, the country’s health minister Firas Abiad said.

Fifteen of the 68 wounded in the attack remain in hospital.

Ali Harake, the head of the rescue team searching through the rubble, told Sky News his team is still looking for between 17 and 18 missing people – though he fears none have survived.

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It is understood two apartment blocks in a densely populated southern neighbourhood collapsed in the strike – the deadliest attack on Beirut in decades.

Top Hezbollah commanders are believed to have been meeting in the basement of one of the buildings.

Hezbollah has confirmed two of its senior commanders, Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wahbi, died in the strike while an Israeli military spokesperson said that at least 16 Hezbollah militants were killed.

Wahbi oversaw the military operations of the Radwan special forces – a commando unit that seeks to infiltrate and carry out attacks in Israel – until early 2024. Aqil was also a top commander for the Iran-backed group.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas has described the killing of Aqil as a “crime” and a “folly”, adding Israel will “pay the price”.

Meanwhile, at least 13 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza City, according to a local report.

The strikes are believed to have hit several schools sheltering displaced people in the southern part of the city.

The strikes come after Hezbollah launched one of its most intense bombardments of northern Israel in nearly a year of fighting, largely targeting Israeli military sites.

Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system intercepted most of the Katyusha rockets.

Hezbollah said its latest wave of rocket attacks was a response to past Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon.

It came days after mass explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies killed at least 37 people, including two children. Some 2,900 others were wounded in the assault which has been widely attributed to Israel.