VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – The government is preparing recommendations to tackle the abusive use of deepfake technology, Prime Minister Robert Abela told members of the Parliament of Youths and the National Youth Council.
Deepfakes are realistic AI-generated videos, audio or images that depict people saying or doing things they never did.
Abela stressed the importance of the responsible use of artificial intelligence, saying the government is studying existing laws and drafting measures to prevent deepfakes from being used to bully, blackmail or harass individuals.
“We will work in the same way as we acted against cyberbullying and cyberstalking, to penalise the use of deepfakes to harm people,” he said.
The Maltese government’s approach mirrors action being taken internationally amid growing concern over AI abuse.
On Monday, UK media regulator Ofcom opened a formal investigation into Elon Musk’s X over its AI chatbot Grok, whose image-generation feature has been used to create sexualised deepfakes.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned that if X cannot control the tool, authorities will intervene swiftly, adding that companies profiting from harm risk losing the right to self-regulate.
The European Commission has ordered X to retain all internal documents and data related to Grok until the end of 2026, while EU officials said platforms will be required to prevent the generation of illegal content.
Several countries, including France, Malaysia and India, have also pushed back against the misuse of AI tools, calling for investigations and rapid takedowns of explicit images.
– photo DOI –
(ITALPRESS).
