The Delhi High Court on Friday said it would pass orders to protect the personality rights of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and direct the removal of deepfake videos circulating on social media platforms in which he was falsely portrayed as praising Pakistan.
Justice Mini Pushkarna issued summons to the Centre and social media intermediaries, including Meta and X, on Tharoor’s suit seeking takedown of the videos and protection of his personality and publicity rights.
The court observed that directions for blocking the offending content would be issued and granted four weeks’ time to the respondents to place their replies on record.
In his plea, Tharoor alleged that unidentified persons had launched a coordinated disinformation campaign across digital platforms by deploying artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to create deepfake videos replicating his face, voice, language and mannerisms.
The suit said that the fabricated clips falsely attributed politically sensitive remarks to him, including statements suggesting that Pakistan was performing better diplomatically than India and portraying him as admiring Pakistan’s foreign policy approach.
Tharoor submitted that the manipulated videos were highly convincing and had ended up misleading sections of the public, political circles and even foreign journalists, thereby damaging his public image internationally.
According to the plea, the content was intentionally circulated to deceive viewers and had caused serious harm to his reputation and standing, besides subjecting him to mental distress and harassment.
The Congress leader further claimed that the campaign surfaced while he was canvassing during the recently concluded Kerala elections and was aimed at undermining his patriotic image, influencing public opinion and interfering with the electoral process.
Senior Advocate Amit Sibal, appearing for Tharoor, told the court that despite complaints to the authorities, the deepfake videos continued to repeatedly reappear online.
Sibal submitted that false statements were being attributed to Tharoor through fabricated videos despite fact-checks establishing that the clips were fake. He argued that many people were still treating the content as genuine and warned that such material could also be exploited by foreign governments.
He further contended that the misuse of Tharoor’s identity had wider implications because of his stature as a former Union Minister dealing with external affairs and could adversely impact India’s image abroad.
Counsel, appearing for Meta, informed the court that several links identified by Tharoor had already been rendered inaccessible and the flagged Instagram URLs were taken down earlier in the day.
The High Court, thereafter, issued summons in the matter and said it would pass directions for removal of the offending videos and related content.
