Amitabh Bachchan reacts to Rashmika Mandanna’s viral deepfake video, demands action: ‘This is a strong case for legal’

Amitabh Bachchan has called for action after a deepfake video of Rashmika Mandanna began doing the rounds on social media. The viral video shows a woman dressed in black inside an elevator. Her face has been edited using artificial intelligence (AI) to resemble Rashmika.

Amitabh Bachchan shares Rashmika’s deepfake clip

Amitabh took to X (formerly Twitter) to re-share a tweet by a user calling for the ‘urgent need for a legal and regulatory framework to deal with deepfake in India’ amid Rashmika’s fake clip going viral. Reacting to the tweet, the veteran actor, who worked with Rashmika in her first Hindi film Goodbye (2022), shared the video and wrote, “Yes, this is a strong case for legal.”

yes this is a strong case for legal https://t.co/wHJl7PSYPN

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) November 5, 2023

The person in the video is a British woman named Zara Patel. She has a huge social media following and had uploaded the video last month. Sharing details, X user named Abhishek had tweeted, “There is an urgent need for a legal and regulatory framework to deal with deepfake in India. You might have seen this viral video of actress Rashmika Mandanna on Instagram. But wait, this is a deepfake video of Zara Patel. This thread contains the actual video.”

In another tweet, he said, “The original video is of Zara Patel, a British-Indian girl with 415K followers on Instagram. She uploaded this video on Instagram on 9 October.” He further said, “From a deepfake POV, the viral video is perfect enough for ordinary social media users to fall for it. But if you watch the video carefully, you can see at (0:01) that when Rashmika (deepfake) was entering the lift, suddenly her face changes from the other girl to Rashmika.”

Internet reacts to fake video

Although Rashmika is yet to react, many on X have expressed shock and anger over her deepfake video. An X user said, “Yeah it’s super subtle. Look at the eyebrows.” Another wrote, “Ok, this is terrifying.”

A person also tweeted, “The use of deepfake technology to create inappropriate videos is deeply concerning and is a violation of privacy and consent. Legal action should definitely be taken in such cases. The individuals responsible for creating and distributing these videos should be held accountable under the law. Cyber laws often cover such acts of digital impersonation and misuse of images, and engaging with legal authorities is a necessary step to ensure that the rights of the affected individuals are protected and justice is served.”