India, Aug. 6 -- The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has reduced the deadline for social media platforms to remove "unlawful information" from 36 hours to three hours after receiving a valid notice from either the government or a court.

In a bid to tackle the growing threat of deepfakes and AI-generated videos, the ministry directed all intermediaries to ensure clear labelling and traceable metadata for such content so that users can "easily identify synthetically generated material and prevent deception or misuse".

The directions are a part of the IT rules that were amended in February. "Intermediaries are required to ensure clear labelling and traceable metadata for permissible AI-generated content, so that ...