Judge blocks California law that targeted deepfake campaign ads

With deepfake video and audio making their way into political campaigns, California enacted its toughest restrictions yet in September: a law prohibiting political ads within 120 days of an election that include deceptive, digitally generated or altered content unless the ads are labeled as “manipulated.”

On Wednesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the law, saying it violated the 1st Amendment.

Other laws against deceptive campaign ads remain on the books in California, including one that requires candidates and political action committees to disclose when ads are using artificial intelligence to create or substantially alter content. But the preliminary injunction granted against Assembly Bill 2839 means that there will be no broad prohibition against individuals using artificial intelligence to clone a candidate’s image or voice and portraying them falsely without revealing that the images or words are fake.

The injunction was sought by Christopher Kohls, a conservative commentator who has created a number of deepfake videos satirizing Democrats, including the party’s presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. Gov. Gavin Newsom cited one of those videos — which showed clips of Harris while a deepfake version of her voice talked about being the “ultimate diversity hire” and professing both ignorance and incompetence — when he signed AB 2839, but the measure actually was introduced in February, long before Kohls’ Harris video went viral on X.



https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-03/judge-blocks-california-law-that-targeted-deepfake-campaign-ads