British-Indian influencer Zara Patel took to Instagram to express her concern over a deepfake video that was created using her video and actor Rashmika Mandanna’s face. She expressed that she is ‘deeply disturbed and upset by what is happening’ and clarified that she had no involvement in the creation of the video.
Read| Rashmika Mandanna thanks co-star Amitabh Bachchan for standing up: ‘I feel safe in a country with leaders like you’
Patel, in her Instagram story, wrote, “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.”
In the next few lines, she urged people to fact-check before believing what they see on the Internet. “Please take a step back and fact-check what you see on the Internet. Not everything on the Internet is real.”
The now-viral video shows Patel, dressed in black, walking into an elevator. However, her face has been heavily edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make it look like it is Rashmika Mandanna who is entering the lift.
Take a look at the post shared by Zara Patel here:
The truth behind the viral deepfake video came to light when a fact checker posted the original and edited clips on social media. The post got actor Amitabh Bachchan’s attention, who retweeted it and wrote, “Yes, this is a strong case for legal.”
{{/usCountry}}The truth behind the viral deepfake video came to light when a fact checker posted the original and edited clips on social media. The post got actor Amitabh Bachchan’s attention, who retweeted it and wrote, “Yes, this is a strong case for legal.”
{{/usCountry}}Rashmika Mandanna, whose face was used in the deepfake video, also shared her thoughts on the matter. She tweeted, “I feel really hurt to share this and have to talk about the deepfake video of me being spread online. Something like this is honestly, extremely scary not only for me, but also for each one of us who today is vulnerable to so much harm because of how technology is being misused.”
“We need to address this as a community and with urgency before more of us are affected by such identity theft,” she added.