An AI-generated video showing the Prime Minister of Kerala, V. Di Satchidan, dancing with employees of the Kerala State Electricity Board against the backdrop of a recent energy crisis in Kerala went viral, but Meta restricted access to it in India. This was reported by the content creators on Monday.
The video was published on Thursday on the Instagram page named 'aikavala' and garnered 17.8 million views by Sunday. The access restriction was implemented after the Prime Minister Satchidan himself mentioned the video during a public event, expressing delight over it.
On Monday, he spoke about the clip again, noting that despite part of the video being created for mockery, he was still pleased. Furthermore, he raised the issue of potential legal problems associated with the use of artificial intelligence.
On Sunday, the 'aikavala' page posted a notice stating that access to the video in India had been restricted following a legal request from Meta. The creators shared a message from Meta which stated: 'After receiving notification from the Indian government, we have restricted access to your content in India.'
The page administrator, Abhijit, suggested that this decision was not related to objections from V. Di Satchidan, as the Prime Minister highly praised the reel in a public forum. He added that he did not know the reason for the restriction, but noted that the video is available to view from other countries.
Abhijit also emphasized that since the Prime Minister liked the video, he does not believe the decision was made at his behest. However, he hypothesized about possible interference from some cyber unit. He clarified that the video contained a disclaimer, so it was not completely deleted. When asked about the intention to challenge this block, he replied that no decision has been made yet, and that the reel was accepted by people everywhere.
