Naga Chaitanya, Mrunal Thakur and Chinmayi Sripaada Express Solidarity With Rashmika Mandanna After Deepfake Video Goes Viral

Actress Rashmika Mandanna recently fell prey to an AI-generated Deepfake video of hers. The video went viral all over social media and it left her appalled. The actress on Monday wrote in a post that how hurt she was over the fake video. Rashmika's friends and colleagues have come out to support her after she shared about the nasty act. Celebs like Amitabh Bachchan, Naga Chaitanya, Mrunal Thakur and Chinmayi Sripaada among others condemned this misuse of AI technology and demanded strict action. 

Reacting to Rashmika's post, Naga Chaitanya tweeted on Monday, "It’s truly disheartening to see how technology is being misused and the thought of what this can progress to in the future is even scarier. Action has to be taken and some kind of law has to be enforced to protect people who have and will be a victim to this. Strength to you."

Mrunal Thakur in a strong note on her Instagram Stories wrote, "Shame on people who resort to such things, it shows that there is no conscience left at all in such people. Thank you @rashmika_mandanna for speaking up, for addressing this issue that so far we have seen glimpses of but a lot of us chose to remain silent. Everyday there are morphed, edited videos of female actors floating around on internet zooming into inappropriate body parts. Where are we heading as a community, as a society? We may be actresses in the "limelight" but at the end of the day each one of us are human. Why aren't we talking about it? Don't remain silent, now is not the time (sic)."

Singer Chinmayi Sripaada wrote on X, “Several months ago, a video of one of our most favourite actors in an AI avatar performed to Kaavaalaa from Jailer released - only it wasn’t her. It was a Deep Fake. Nobody knows for sure whether Ms Simran had consented in advance to her likeness to be used in the Deep Fake AI rendering of Kaavaalaa. She shared it on her social media pages as well.”

She further wrote, "Now a deepfake Rashmika video surfaces and I just saw her Instagram story where she genuinely looks disturbed - In a country where women’s bodies are exploited everyday, Deep Fake is going to be the next weapon they use to target and harass and blackmail girls to extort, blackmail and rape; Their clueless families in one small village or town is not going to understand when the so called maanam / or honour is at stake. Loan apps harass women borrowers with photoshopped images of their faces over porn photos and they can't deal with that. But a Deep Fake is going to be tougher for the usual untrained eye to spot. Everyone doesn’t have high-res displays. I truly hope there is a nationwide awareness campaign that can kickstart urgently to educate the general public about the dangers of deepfakes for girls and to report incidents instead of taking matters into their own hands."

On the work front, Rashmika Mandanna will be seen in 'Animal' opposite Ranbir Kapoor. It is releasing on December 1.