Scope:
The reasons why the prevalence of faked AI content is such an enormous problem for everyone, the real statistics behind the issue, how India’s takedown laws have been updated in recent months, and actions you should take when deepfakes using your identity pop up online.
There’s also a quick look at where a professional fake news removal service actually helps versus what you can try to fix yourself.
Why This Isn’t a Niche Problem Anymore
Two or three years ago, deep fakes were mostly something that happened to actors and politicians. That’s changed fast. Deep fake fraud now makes up 6.5% of all fraud attempts worldwide, compared to just 0.1% back in 2022, and financial losses from these scams crossed $200 million in the first quarter of 2025 alone.
It is the sheer magnitude that surprises everybody. In 2026, some 8 million deepfakes exist in cyberspace, up from around 500,000 in 2023, with the amount increasing by 900% annually due to the low-cost nature of producing them, which requires basically nothing in terms of financial investment and skills anymore. It doesn’t even take an experienced technician to produce one; a simple kid with a laptop can do that.
Who Actually Gets Targeted
More than 50% of all deep fake attacks detected in the third quarter of 2025 targeted celebrities or other famous people, and women were being singled out as victims in 4.5 times more individual cases than men.
That last part matters a lot: much of this content isn’t financial fraud at all; it’s personal.
A large share of deepfake videos online, close to 98% by some estimates, are non-consensual explicit content rather than scam material. For businesses, the risk looks different: fake reviews, cloned voice calls asking staff to move money, or a fabricated “leaked” video meant to damage a founder’s name before a funding round.
The Kinds of Fake Content You’ll Run Into
| Type: | Common example: | Where does it usually show up? |
| Fake video | Cloned face or body in a compromising clip | Social media, adult sites, WhatsApp forwards |
| Fake voice | Cloned voice used in a scam call to staff or family | Phone calls, voicemail |
| Fake image | Face-swapped photo or edited screenshot | Google Images, forums |
| Fake article | Made-up quote or story attributed to a real person or company | News aggregator sites, blogs |
| Fake review | AI-written negative review posing as a real customer | Google, Glassdoor, Trustpilot |
Each one needs a slightly different fix, which is where a lot of people get stuck. Reporting a fake review to Google is not the same process as getting a fake article pulled from a news site.
India’s Rules Got Much Faster This Year
This part matters if you’re in India or dealing with content hosted here. The amendment to the 2021 IT Rules made in February 2026 mandates that platforms comply with takedown orders for deepfakes and AI-generated impersonation within three hours rather than the previous 36 hours. In addition, platforms must give a clear label to AI-generated material and cannot remove the label or its metadata after being applied to it.
This is a serious step forward. A 36-hour wait used to mean a fake video could go viral before anyone acted. Three hours doesn’t fix everything, but it closes that gap a lot.
The Legal Sections That Apply
| Law: | Section: | Covers: |
| IT Act | 66C | Identity theft |
| IT Act | 66D | Impersonation using a computer resource |
| IT Act | 66E | Privacy violation |
| IT Act | 67 / 67A | Publishing obscene or sexually explicit material |
| BNS 2023 | 353 | False statements causing public mischief |
| BNS 2023 | 356C | Impersonation using electronic identity |
Section 69A of the IT Act gives the government power to give direct blocking orders to platforms, while Section 79 deals with notices for removal of unlawful content. It is useful to know in advance about the section relevant to your case so that you do not have to write a vague report but use the right reference point in your complaint.
What To Do Within The First 24 Hours
Don’t waste time arguing with the platform in comments and contacting the author via messages. Screenshot everything, including the URL, date, and details of the author’s account if available, because the content will be either deleted or modified after the author becomes aware of it.
Report it via the site’s own impersonation/non-consensual content form, not the general “spam” button, which will go through a different review process. If it is a news site or a blog, most sites have a correction or takedown form available in their footer somewhere.
Getting a Fake News Article Off Google
If the fake story is already indexed, deleting it from the original site isn’t always enough; Google can keep showing the cached version for weeks. This is usually where a proper fake news removal service earns its cost, because it involves contacting the publisher directly, filing a legal request where needed, and separately asking Google to remove news articles from Google under its outdated content or personal information removal process.
We’ve handled a fair number of these at Build Brand Better, and the pattern is almost always the same: the publisher ignores the first two emails, then responds once there’s a legal notice attached. A fake news removal service that skips straight to threats without trying direct contact first usually takes longer, not less time, because publishers get defensive.
Getting Fake Images Off Search Results
Pictures are a bit more complicated, as Google indexes each picture separately from the page where it appears. Even if the site removes the photo, the thumbnail can be there in Google for quite a while. The process to Remove Images from Google Search requires sending the removal request under Google’s policy about non-consensual or personal photos, but it also requires reporting the page that it’s on since the cache won’t be removed by itself until Google recrawls it.
If the picture is a face swap or an AI-altered photo, please mention it in your request, as Google considers it a different, faster category than the general one.
When the Fake Is a Video
Video is the hardest type to remove since it is spread on multiple platforms quicker than it is possible to keep up. A Best Video Removal Service would always file concurrent reports on all platforms where the clip has landed (YouTube, Instagram, X, adult tube sites, and Telegram channels), because once you take down one copy, there would be three new copies up.
Here, speed is paramount. A video that sits up for even a day tends to get re-shared in private groups where it’s basically unreachable afterwards.
Cam Model Content Removal and Non-Consensual Leaks
This is a category people don’t talk about enough. Cam Model Content Removal covers situations where private or paid content gets leaked, screen-recorded, or deepfaked and reposted without consent, often on piracy or “leak” forums that don’t respond to normal takedown requests. These sites usually ignore direct emails entirely, so the more effective route is going through their hosting provider or their payment processor, since most piracy sites depend on both to stay online.
It’s slow, uncomfortable work, but it’s not hopeless. Persistent reporting through the right legal channel, DMCA where it applies, or Section 67A locally, does get results over a few weeks, even on sites that seem impossible to reach.
Prevention of Exposure of Your Private Information Before It Is Used Against You
A good chunk of deepfake and impersonation attempts are built upon information which is already publicly available: a phone number from a people search site, an outdated address, or the name of a family member.
This is why ORM services for remove private information exist as their own category, separate from content takedowns. The idea is to get ahead of the problem by scrubbing the raw material an attacker would need before they use it, rather than only reacting after a fake shows up.
Data broker sites are the main target here. There are dozens of them, and most have opt-out forms buried a few clicks deep. Doing this manually for even ten sites takes a few hours; doing it for the fifty-plus that typically hold someone’s info takes a full weekend, which is usually why people outsource it once they realise how much of their information is sitting out there.
DIY vs Getting Help:
| Basis: | Doing it yourself: | Working with a professional service: |
| Time needed | Several hours to weeks, per item | Handled in parallel across items |
| Legal knowledge required | You research each law yourself. | Already familiar with relevant sections |
| Platform relationships | None; you’re a first-time reporter | Established escalation contacts |
| Best for | A single, simple review or post | Multiple pieces, or content that’s already spread |
Neither option is wrong. A single fake review might genuinely be a ten-minute fix. A spreading video across five platforms with a data-broker problem underneath it usually isn’t, and trying to chase all of it alone tends to burn weeks without much to show for it.
A Few Actions That Minimise Future Risk:
Use free Google Alerts for your name or business to detect most mentions in one day. Reduce the amount of your personal video and audio publicly available since voice cloning requires no more than a few seconds of clear audio. And check data broker sites occasionally since they constantly update their databases even despite the opt-out.
FAQs
Q1. Is it possible to actually get a deepfake taken off Google, or will it stay there forever?
The vast majority of content may be taken down. The time frame varies, depending on the platform and if it is still live on the original host.
Q2. Is making a deepfake illegal in India?
Making one isn’t automatically illegal, but using it to impersonate, defame, or create explicit content of someone without consent falls under several IT Act and BNS sections, and platforms are now required to act on it fast.
Q3. How long does a professional takedown usually take?
It varies a lot by platform. A straightforward review or social post might come down in a few days. A news article or a video hosted on several different websites will usually take a few weeks, particularly if the host is uncooperative.
Q4. What if the individual who published the content refuses to remove it?
It doesn’t matter. Platforms, hosts, and even search engines do not have to wait for the content owner to take action once the takedown has been requested and validated.
Q5. Does labelling AI content actually stop deepfakes?
Not on its own; it mainly helps genuine users stay compliant. Bad actors making non-consensual content were never going to label it anyway, so removal and legal routes still matter more.
Q6. Can a fake article about my business affect my Google ranking?
Yes, particularly if it is indexed by Google under your company name. That is normally the first step that must be done.
Q7. Is it worth monitoring for this stuff if nothing has happened to me yet?
It’s worth at least the free version of Google Alerts. Almost everyone dealing with this problem wishes they had gotten to it on day one rather than day three.
AI-created false content isn’t going away anytime soon. Truthfully, it will most likely continue to become more common to create before it becomes less difficult to detect. One positive change is in how quickly the platforms and the laws are changing; a three-hour takedown did not exist a year ago.
Whether it’s one bad review or a full-blown impersonation campaign, the fix usually comes down to acting quickly, knowing which legal route applies, and not assuming the platform will notice on its own.
