Deepfakes: There's a thin line between satire and defamation

Satire has long been accepted as a legitimate form of free speech, not constituting defamation. The Delhi high court recently examined the use of non-consensual deepfakes in the matter of Anil Kapoor vs Simply Life India & Others. The Delhi high court observed that tools like AI have made it possible for unauthorized users to use the visual and audio data of any person to create deepfakes. The court also observed that the legal protection accorded to free-speech referring to public figures includes satire within its ambit, but does not include speech that jeopardizes the “individual’s personality" or “attributes associated with …" Television journalist Rajat Sharma has also approached the Delhi high court seeking broad orders on deepfakes, including directions for access to be blocked to software applications that enable their creation. Satire versus defamation in the world of deepfakes: While the Delhi high court’s decision in the Anil Kapoor case does provide a Lakshman Rekha, or red line on what is acceptable, the question of how deepfakes interact with the law of defamation remains open.