Introduction
I watch policy and technology collide with a mix of curiosity and concern. India’s recent amendment to the Information Technology Rules — which requires platforms to remove AI-generated or deepfake content within three hours of a government or court notice, and to label synthetic media with persistent provenance markers — is one of those moments that forces us to rethink how speed, accuracy, and rights interact online. The rules come into force from February 20, 2026 and tightly define “synthetically generated information” as audio, visual or audio-visual material created or altered using computer resources so that it appears real.India notification and reporting[^1]
What the policy requires
At a practical level the amendments do three core things:
- Treat synthetic audio/visual content as a covered form of “information” under the IT Rules and require clear, prominent labelling and embedded provenance metadata where technically feasible.[^2]
- Shorten response windows dramatically — a three-hour takedown for certain government or court orders (previously 36 hours), two-hour responses for intimate or highly sensitive cases, and compressed grievance timelines overall.[^3]
- Tie safe-harbour protections to demonstrable due diligence (user declarations, automated verification, visible labels and anti-tamper metadata), and bar platforms from allowing AI labels or metadata to be removed once applied.[^4]
These are not minor edits. They reframe platform obligations for everything from upload UX to backend provenance and legal review workflows.[^2][^3]
Implications for platforms, users and creators
For platforms:
- Operational strain: three-hour windows push platforms toward automation and pre‑publication checks; human review becomes a post‑hoc safety net rather than the primary filter.
- Traceability and engineering: platforms will need robust provenance systems (metadata, signed manifests, layered watermarking) and tamper-resistance to meet the “persistent” label requirement.[^5]
- Legal exposure: failure to show reasonable verification or to act within timelines risks loss of safe‑harbour protections.
For users and creators:
- Transparency benefits: visible labels and provenance can help audiences judge authenticity and reduce harm from impersonation or fraud.
- Chilling effect risk: compressed takedowns and automated filters may lead to over‑removal of borderline or satirical content.
- Burden of proof: creators may need to declare AI use and retain provenance for their content.
Legal and technical challenges
The rush to short deadlines collides with messy realities. Detection accuracy for sophisticated deepfakes is imperfect; watermarking and metadata are helpful but not foolproof (they can be stripped, transcoded, or degraded). The rules expect platforms to verify user declarations “using reasonable and proportionate technical measures,” but the exact standard for “reasonable” is open to interpretation.[^3]
There are constitutional and procedural questions too: how should platforms balance rapid compliance with free expression, due process, and the risk of wrongful takedown? As legal practitioner Aprajita Rana (email: aprajita_rana@harvard.edu) cautioned, “The law, however, continues to require intermediaries to remove content upon being aware or receiving actual knowledge, that too within three hours,” highlighting how compressed timelines depart from earlier norms and create practical tensions between speed and safeguards.[^2]
Civil-society groups have also warned the new timelines could push platforms toward blunt automation that risks over-removal and weakens meaningful human oversight.[^2]
How this compares globally
India’s approach is more interventionist on speed than many peers. The EU’s AI Act and its Article 50 focus heavily on transparency and machine‑readable markings, and the EU is building technical codes of practice for multilayered watermarking and detection, but the EU timeline and enforcement mechanisms emphasize compliance documentation and pre-market obligations rather than ultra-short takedown clocks.[^5]
In the United States the regulatory picture is patchwork: several state laws target political deepfakes and non‑consensual intimate imagery, and federal proposals and bills have addressed labeling and remedies, but there has not been a uniform three‑hour takedown standard at the federal level.[^6]
China and some other jurisdictions have moved toward mandatory labeling and traceability, but enforcement modalities and due process protections differ across regimes.[^7]
Potential consequences — benefits and risks
Benefits:
- Faster removal of demonstrably illegal or harmful synthetic content (child sexual abuse imagery, fraud, violent incitement).
- Stronger provenance and labelling could raise public media literacy and reduce deception.
Risks:
- Over‑reliance on automated systems may produce wrongful takedowns and chill legitimate speech (parody, satire, legitimate critique).
- Technical arms race: adversaries can try to strip metadata or exploit time windows to spread content before removal.
- Compliance costs may disproportionately burden smaller platforms and creators.
Recommended best practices
For platforms:
- Layer defenses: combine metadata signing (C2PA-style manifests), invisible watermarking, and forensic detectors; provide APIs for independent verification.[^5]
- Human-in-the-loop triage: use automation for triage but retain rapid human escalation paths for contested takedowns.
- Transparency reporting: publish takedown reasons, counts, and time-to-action metrics to build public trust.
- User tooling: provide creators easy ways to declare provenance and to attach verifiable manifests.
For users and creators:
- Preserve provenance: keep original files, timestamps, and any signed manifests from AI tools you use.
- Label proactively: if you publish AI-assisted work, disclose at posting and pin a short provenance note.
- Learn reporting channels: know how to flag non-consensual or illegal synthetic content and preserve copies for evidence.
Conclusion
India’s three‑hour takedown rule is a decisive step to limit the harms of synthetic media, but it also raises challenges that are legal, technical and ethical. The most constructive path forward balances speed with robust provenance, accurate detection, human oversight, and transparency. If done well, the amendments can reduce harm without unduly constraining legitimate expression; if done poorly, they risk amplifying error and centralising moderation power without accountability. As someone who watches these shifts closely, I believe the next months will be a stress test — for platforms, regulators, and civil society — of whether technical design and legal safeguards can be made to work at internet speed.
Regards,
Hemen Parekh
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