Delhi High Court says it will pass orders to take down deepfake videos showing Shashi Tharoor praising Pakistan

The Delhi High Court on Friday said it will pass orders to protect the personality rights of Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor and also direct removal of his deepfake videos on social media in which he has been wrongly depicted as praising Pakistan.

Justice Mini Pushkarna issued summons to the Central government and social media intermediaries including Meta and X (respondents) on Tharoor's suit to take down deepfake videos and protect his personality rights.

"(Blocking) orders will be passed," the Court said.

It directed the respondents to file their replies within four weeks

Tharoor joins the long list of actors, cricketers and other notable personalities who have approached the High Court in recent years over their personality and public rights. 

Earlier, actors such as Anil Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan have secured injunctions against unauthorised use of their name, voice, image and likeness, particularly in advertisements, merchandise and AI-generated content. 

In his suit, Tharoor argued that there has been a malicious campaign orchestrated by unknown infringers across various digital platforms. He said that the infringers have weaponised artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to generate hyper-realistic audio-visual deepfakes by cloning his face, voice, vocabulary, and mannerisms.

Deepfakes have been created showing him praising Pakistani foreign policy as "absolute brilliance", the plea said.

"These fabricated videos maliciously depict the Plaintiff [Tharoor] making politically sensitive statements that he never made, including 'Pakistan is faring much better diplomatically than India' and praise for Pakistan’s diplomatic strategies as 'absolute brilliance'," the suit stated.

The forgery is so realistic that it has deceived unsuspecting members of the public, the political establishment, as well as various foreign journalists, escalating the matter into an international embarrassment, the plea said.

It added that such content is calculated to mislead the public and has caused serious harm to Tharoor's credibility, reputation, and public standing, resulting in significant mental anguish and harassment.

"The forgery is so realistic that it has deceived unsuspecting members of the public, the political establishment, as well as various foreign journalists, escalating the matter into an international embarrassment," Tharoor argued.

He added that he was campaigning for the recently concluded Kerala elections when the disinformation campaign started, and it was a "deliberate attempt to tarnish his patriotic credentials, manipulate public perception, and unlawfully interfere with the democratic electoral process".

Senior Advocate Amit Sibal, appearing for Tharoor, contended that Tharoor's deepfakes could be misused by foreign governments.

"We have complained to the authorities but these deepfakes keep coming back like ten heads of Ravana. Statements are being attributed which can harm him. There are fake videos. Fact checks have been done, yet the public continues to believe that they are genuine. They can be misused by foreign governments," Sibal said.

He said that such deepfakes can affect India's image.

"They have misappropriated my personality and created these videos praising another country to my detriment. I have been the external affairs minister. It matters to India's standing as well," it was submitted.

The counsel appearing for Meta said that some links flagged by Tharoor are already remove and are inaccessible.

"All the Instagram URLs identified in Schedule 1 are inaccessible. They were taken down this morning," the counsel for Meta said.

The Court then proceeded to issue summons on the suit, while stating that it will pass orders to take down offending videos/ content.

Besides Sibal, advocate Tine Abraham, partner at law firm Trilegal, appeared for Tharoor.

The suit by Tharoor was filed through advocate Nikhil Narendran, partner at Trilegal.