Remove fake content at the earliest: Government asks intermediaries

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology advised all intermediaries to take down illegal content at the earliest

New Delhi In an advisory dated September 3, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology advised all intermediaries to take down illegal content at the earliest and proactively, weeks after the Bombay high court ordered Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) and Telegram to delete all fake information, including morphed videos and profiles, related to the NSE (National Stock Exchange) within ten hours of receiving such a complaint.

NSE told the court that it had reported the deceptive posts and ads to Meta earlier. (Mint)

“[T]he Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology wants to remind the intermediaries of their responsibility to take prompt action to remove any prohibited information at the earliest possible opportunity. … The intermediaries are hereby advised to complete the takedown process, wherever it has been found necessary to do so, proactively and at the earliest possible opportunity and not wait for the expiry of the time limits as prescribed in the Rules which is only an outside limit,” the MeitY advisory said, citing the Information Technology Act, and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

To be sure, as per the IT Act, IT Rules 2021, and the Supreme Court’s 2015 Shreya Singhal judgment, intermediaries must take down “unlawful information” within 36 hours of receiving “actual knowledge”, that is, a court order or a notice from the “Appropriate Government”.

The July 16 Bombay HC order came after fake videos of the MD and CEO of NSE Ashishkumar Chauhan, generated using artificial intelligence, started doing the rounds on social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram, both as advertisements and unpaid content. These videos were deepfakes of Chauhan that showed him asking users to join WhatsApp groups to pick stocks. In some videos, he was falsely shown as saying that NSE would reimburse investors for losses incurred. Justice RI Chagla instructed Meta, Telegram, and LINE to “act within (10) hours (and not exceeding 14 hours)” of receiving a complaint from NSE.

“The deceptive behaviour of the violators is capable of manipulating the markets and thereby resulting in unfair trade practices as well as violation of various Sebi regulations enacted from time to time,” NSE said. It said that these videos would mislead “innocent investors” who could lose their money to these “tricksters’, adversely affect the securities market ecosystem and could result in “immense financial and reputational loss” to the NSE’s “standing as the front-line market regulator”.

NSE told the court that it had reported the deceptive posts and ads to Meta which were removed but the process of was “extremely time-consuming and impracticable in the long run” as investors were likely to act on tips instantly while it took Meta and Telegram between five to fifteen days to take down the fake ads after they were reported. “In a few cases, it is more than 17 days,” NSE submitted to the court.

“[D]uring the period in which the fake videos are in circulation, there is likelihood of grave and irreparable injury as several investors may act upon the false information contained in the fake videos or in the websites, groups or channels mentioned in the advertisements containing the fake videos,” NSE said.

NSE had approached the court to get a takedown order against Meta’s platforms (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), Telegram, and Ly Corporation (which owns Yahoo! Japan and LINE messaging app). NSE had also argued that “unknown perpetrators”, identified as John Does or Ashok Kumar and WhatsApp group administrators, were infringing on NSE’s trademark “by wrongful circulation and/or publication of false and misleading advertisements” on platforms owned by Meta, Telegram and Ly Corporation. NSE had asked for these links to be removed as well. The court noted that notice had been served to three of the six administrators of the reported WhatsApp group that had 175 members. Notice could not be served to the remaining three as they were no longer available on WhatsApp.

The order noted Telegram’s preliminary reply in which its lawyer, Kingshuk Banerjee, said that platform had agreed to comply with IT Rules but said that he could not “undertake any adjudicatory or censorial function in identifying content that infringes the Plaintiff’s intellectual property rights”.

In its submissions to the court, NSE had said that its cyber and information security team, on April 3, had discovered individuals or entities that were engaging in “fraudulent activities by publishing false messages and videos on social media platforms”. These videos, as per the NSE, were uploaded to Facebook as ads by multiple pages pretending to be stock analysts, “stock market helpers”, and NSE itself.

One of the videos posted as an ad by a page called “Stock analyst” used NSE’s trademark and bore a deepfake of Chauhan that was used to persuade common investors to join a WhatsApp community to pick stocks. This Facebook page also redirected users to a website called “dlyndfibb.top” which had links to join LINE, a messaging app owned by Ly Corporation. This video was also being circulated on a WhatsApp group called “(9RajivJain Learning Communication Group)” which had six administrators and 175 members. The admins of this group have been listed as defendants in this case.

In another deepfake video of Chauhan, posted as an advertisement by a page called “The Sky of the Stock Market”, the same WhatsApp community is promoted and investors are also assured that NSE would be fully reimbursed if they incur losses. These videos were being circulated on Instagram as Facebook ads by a page named “Manuel Dan Cann”.

Similarly, on Telegram, NSE submitted, channels “have been fraudulently named” as National Stock Exchange or variations thereof and recommend stocks to buy or sell, “thus creating the impression that the Plaintiff [NSE] has allegedly endorsed the recommendations”.

On April 5, NSE had filed an FIR with the Cyber Police, Bandra Kurla Complex. NSE submitted that it had written to Facebook’s grievance officer on April 22, asking it to filter and/or identify Chauhan’s fake videos being uploaded as ads or posts. This letter had an “indicative list of URLS linked to the false and misleading advertisements identified by” NSE.