'Animal' actress Rashmika Mandanna was the victim of the deepfake video that went viral on social media. The investigation is underway and now the police officials have tracked down four suspects. On Wednesday, CNN-News18 reported that the police officials questioned four people, who are suspected of having uploaded Rashmika Mandanna's deepfake video. Reportedly, information regarding these suspects was provided by META.
After the interrogation, it is said that the actress' deepfake video was likely uploaded using a fake identity, and the use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN). The portal also learnt that the suspects were not ‘creators’ but ‘uploaders’ of the deepfake video, and they have been released. Police officials are likely to question more people in the coming days.
Rashmika Mandanna's deepfake video was condemned by several celebs including Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan who also demanded legal action against the one who did it. Also, later celebs like Nani, Vijay Deverakonda, Naga Chaitanya and Mrunal Thakur among others expressed concern over it.
An FIR was filed in connection to the case under sections 465 (forgery) and 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66C and 66E of the Information Technology Act at the IFSO unit of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell. After the FIR was filed, Delhi Police wrote to META to provide the URL of the account from which the ‘deepfake’ video of the actress was shared on social media.
Post the video went viral, Rashmika took a strong stance against it as she penned a note that read: “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. Today, as a woman and as an actor, I am thankful for my family, friends and well wishers who are my protection and support system. But if this happened to me when I was in school or college, I genuinely can’t imagine how could I ever tackle this. We need to address this as a community and with urgency before more of us are affected by such identity theft''.
The morphed video of Rashmika showed a woman, dressed in black, entering a lift. But the way her face was edited, it looked like it was the actress herself.
