A recent article in a leading Indian newspaper urges that campaigning on social media using AI-generated or synthetic content needs strong regulation to preserve fairness, transparency, and public trust. The piece argues that when political or social campaigns deploy AI tools to create videos, images, or audio, there’s a real risk of misleading or manipulating audiences — especially when content is misrepresented or taken out of context.
To counter these risks, the article supports regulations requiring any AI-generated media used in campaigns to be clearly labelled (for example as “AI-generated” or “synthetic content”) — so that users can easily identify what is real and what is machine-made. It stresses that such labelling is crucial not only for visual/media content, but also where AI transforms voices or images to produce deepfakes, altered clips or misleading edits.
Moreover, it suggests that along with labelling, there should be a mechanism for accountability: platforms and campaign organizers should disclose who made the content, maintain logs or records, and be ready to remove misleading material promptly when challenged. Such transparency, the article contends, will help safeguard democratic processes and reduce the chance that AI-enabled misinformation influences opinions or elections unfairly.
Finally — on a broader level — the piece warns that as AI tools become cheaper and more powerful, the temptation to use them for propaganda, deepfake-based manipulation or viral misinformation will only grow. Without clear rules and ethical standards, social media campaigns risk undermining public trust, eroding the quality of debate, and destabilizing civic discourse.
