{"id":392480,"date":"2026-07-09T20:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392480\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T20:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:32:10","slug":"pointless-for-california-and-others-to-regulate-campaign-deep-fakes-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392480\/","title":{"rendered":"Pointless for California and others to regulate campaign \u2018deep fakes\u2019 \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the homestretch of primary election season across the United States, and one\u00a0of the key takeaways\u00a0so far is that 2026 appears to be the year when political campaigns fully embrace the use of\u00a0artificial intelligence<\/a>. From the\u00a0viral AI videos<\/a>\u00a0promoting Spencer Pratt\u2019s campaign for mayor of Los Angeles to the use of\u00a0deep-fake attack ads<\/a>\u00a0in the hotly contested\u00a0U.S\u00a0Senate race in Texas, AI-generated content has been abundant throughout the primaries and appears likely to accelerate as the November general election approaches.<\/p>\n

Warnings<\/a>\u00a0about AI-generated misinformation upending American democracy have featured prominently in the lead up to the\u00a0last few<\/a>\u00a0election cycles<\/a>, and in response California, alongside 30 other states,\u00a0enacted laws<\/a>\u00a0to regulate deceptive uses of AI in election communications. Yet the utilization of AI so far in 2026 suggests that much of the content circulating online remains beyond the reach of regulation. Even when content does fall within its purview,\u00a0the capacity for the government to act in a meaningful way\u00a0is severely limited.<\/p>\n

Undeterred,\u00a0congressional Democrats<\/a>\u00a0are already signaling their intention to pursue federal regulations on the use of AI in election advertising if they return to power in 2027. Before attempting another likely fruitless crusade, policymakers should pause and consider why state-level regulations have failed to stem the tide of AI content during recent primary elections.<\/p>\n

The central and unavoidable hurdle to regulating the use of AI in elections is\u00a0the fact\u00a0that most state regulations of AI-generated election content impact political speech protected by the First Amendment. California was the first state to learn this lesson after\u00a0Assembly Bill 2839<\/a> \u2014 the 2024 law banning the use of deceptive AI-generated election content within 120 days of an election \u2014 was\u00a0struck down<\/a>\u00a0in federal court for violating the First Amendment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the government should respond to false claims about the election process \u2014 such as the promotion of incorrect polling locations or voter registration\u00a0deadlines \u2014 it\u00a0does not need to intervene in campaign disputes. Competition creates natural incentives for candidates and their supporters to respond to lies and misinformation, but there\u2019s no such constituency to respond to false claims about election procedures. Yet, many\u00a0of the state regulations are focused on the false AI-generated depictions of candidates, requiring enhanced scrutiny over their impacts to\u00a0freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to stay within the parameters of the First Amendment, most states have opted for regulations that\u00a0do not prohibit speech but instead mandate disclosure when AI is used to create or modify election-related content in a deceptive manner.\u00a0Yet even this approach is not guaranteed to withstand court scrutiny if the law does not include exceptions for\u00a0things like\u00a0satire and parody.\u00a0Hawaii\u2019s disclosure law,\u00a0Act 191<\/a>, was\u00a0struck down<\/a>\u00a0in January for these very reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beyond the constitutional considerations, labeling requirements also face substantial implementation challenges that limit their effectiveness.\u00a0 For example, the viral\u00a0AI-generated video<\/a>\u00a0depicting Spencer Pratt as Batman fell outside California\u2019s regulatory framework because\u00a0the video was created by a third party unaffiliated with the campaign.\u00a0Even though it was unlabeled and Pratt himself promoted it online, the state\u2019s disclosure requirement only applies to political advertisements subject to regulation by the\u00a0California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC)<\/a>, which does not include a video created by a third party.<\/p>\n

Another factor\u00a0that hinders\u00a0the effectiveness of disclosure requirements is that they require a court or government agency to determine whether a communication was AI-generated and assess the truthfulness of the underlying claim. These are simple concepts but difficult to implement. Pinpointing the technology used to generate or alter a video requires technical expertise, while assessing the accuracy of a statement about a candidate requires the government to investigate murky claims where the truth is not always obvious.\u00a0 Doing any of this requires resources, as evidenced\u00a0by\u00a0California FPPC\u2019s\u00a0budget request<\/a>\u00a0for $350,000 in ongoing funding to implement the state\u2019s disclosure requirement, including $100,000 per year for a deep-fake detection software license.<\/p>\n

As AI capabilities continue to advance and further integrate into the political process, the challenges states face in regulating AI in elections will only intensify. The same fundamental dynamics that limit the effectiveness of state regulations also apply at the federal level. Attempting to shield the public from exposure to false AI-generated claims using burdensome government regulations generates real costs with no discernible benefit. <\/p>\n

A better course of action is to encourage free expression and debate while trusting that Americans will, once again, adapt to changes in an\u00a0ever-evolving<\/a>\u00a0information landscape.<\/p>\n

Chris McIsaac is a fellow with the R Street Institute\u2019s governance program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the homestretch of primary election season across the United States, and one\u00a0of the key takeaways\u00a0so far is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,964,975],"class_list":["post-392480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-commentary","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}