India regulates synthetically generated information
Amendments to the intermediary rules required synthetic content to be labelled and compressed takedown deadlines: three hours for court and government orders, two for non-consensual imagery and impersonation.
Why it matters
The jurisdiction with the largest audience for these platforms made labelling of synthetic media a condition of intermediary immunity, on a three-hour clock.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notified the amendments on 10 February 2026 as G.S.R. 120(E), and they came into force on 20 February. They define synthetically generated information as audio, visual or audio-visual content created or altered by computer so that it appears real and depicts a person or event as indistinguishable from reality; the word deepfake does not appear, but that is what the definition covers. Intermediaries whose resources can create or spread such content must label it prominently, embed permanent metadata or another provenance mechanism, including a unique identifier where technically feasible, and use reasonable technical measures, automated tools among them, to keep users from creating or spreading unlawful synthetic material. Takedown deadlines were compressed: three hours instead of 36 for a court order or government notice; two hours instead of 24 on a person's complaint about content showing them nude or in a sexual act, or impersonating them, including morphed images; 36 hours instead of 72 for requests to remove content in the categories the rules prohibit; seven days instead of 15 for resolving other grievances. Significant social media intermediaries, a class set in 2021 at more than five million registered users in India, must require users to declare synthetic content and verify the declarations with technical measures. Non-compliance puts safe harbour under the Information Technology Act at risk.