• By Akshat Sundrani
  • Tue, 07 Nov 2023 11:35 AM (IST)
  • Source:JND

Rashmika Mandanna recently became the center of attention when a deepfake video garnered virality on various social media platforms. This deepfake manipulation transformed her appearance into that of British Indian Zara Patel, rapidly circulating across the internet. Rashmika responded strongly to the incident via her social media accounts. Subsequently, prominent figures in the entertainment industry, including Naga Chaitanya and Mrunal Thakur, have come forward to express their solidarity with the actress.

Actor Naga Chaitanya took to platform X and wrote, "It’s truly disheartening to see how technology is being misused and the thought of what this can progress to in the future is even scarier. Action has to be taken and some kind of law has to be enforced to protect people who have and will be a victim to this .Strength to you (sic)."

Mrunal Thakur took to social media and wrote, "Shame on people who resort to such things, it shows that there is no conscience left at all in such people. Thank you @rashmika_mandanna for speaking up, for addressing this issue that so far we have seen glimpses of but a lot of us chose to remain silent. Everyday there are morphed, edited videos of female actors floating around on internet zooming into inappropriate body parts. Where are we heading as a community, as a society? We may be actresses in the "limelight" but at the end of the day each one of us are human. Why aren't we talking about it? Don't remain silent, now is not the time".

Mrunal Thakur's Instagram story

Chinmayi Sripaada took to platform X and wrote, "Several months ago, a video of one of our most favourite actors in an AI avatar performed to Kaavaalaa from Jailer released - only it wasn’t her. It was a Deep Fake. Nobody knows for sure whether Ms Simran had consented in advance to her likeness to be used in the Deep Fake AI rendering of Kaavaalaa. She shared it on her social media pages as well. Now a DeepFake Rashmika video surfaces and I just saw her Instagram story where she genuinely looks disturbed - In a country where women’s bodies are exploited everyday, Deep Fake is going to be the next weapon they use to target and harass and blackmail girls to extort, blackmail and rape."

She added, "Their clueless families in one small village or town is not going to understand when the so called maanam / or honour is at stake. Loan apps harass women borrowers with photoshopped images of their faces over p*rn photos and they cant deal with that. But a Deep Fake is going to be tougher for the usual untrained eye to spot. Everyone doesn’t have high-res displays. I truly hope there is a nationwide awareness campaign that can kickstart urgently to educate the general public about the dangers of deepfakes for girls and to report incidents instead of taking matters into their own hands."

On Tuesday, Rashmika issued a statement 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." 

Meanwhile, on the work front, Rashmika is all set to star in 'Animal' alongside Ranbir Kapoor. The film is set to release on December 1, 2023.