Legislation that criminalizes the use of \u201cdeepfakes\u201d generated by artificial intelligence to impersonate candidates in political campaign ads cleared the Georgia House of Representatives Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
House Bill 986, which passed 148-22, creates the crime of fraudulent election interference. Anyone who knowingly perpetrates a political deepfake within 90 days of an election would face two to five years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe want to protect good political free speech,\u201d Rep. Brad Thomas, R-Holly Springs, the bill\u2019s chief sponsor, said on the House floor before Thursday\u2019s vote. \u201cBut fraud is not protected speech.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The legislation applies to \u201cmaterially deceptive\u201d video or audio deepfakes but carves out exceptions including satire, parody, artistic expression and journalism. It also allows deepfakes to be used in campaign ads as long as they acknowledge the candidate is being impersonated and the events depicted may not have occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nonetheless, the bill drew objections that it would violate free speech rights. Rep. Charlice Byrd, R-Woodstock, compared it to the Patriot Act Congress passed in 2001 following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis bill is an affront to our First Amendment rights,\u201d Byrd said. \u201cIn the process of providing security, you abolish liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the measure\u2019s supporters said deliberately spreading false information during a political campaign is not protected by the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow can we have election integrity without knowing what the candidates are truly saying?\u201d said Rep. Todd Jones, R-South Forsyth, chairman of the House Technology and Infrastructure Innovation Committee, which approved the bill last week. \u201cDon\u2019t we want truth in advertising?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The legislation now heads to the state Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Legislation that criminalizes the use of \u201cdeepfakes\u201d generated by artificial intelligence to impersonate candidates in political campaign ads cleared the Georgia House of Representatives Thursday. House Bill 986, which passed 148-22, creates the crime of fraudulent election interference. Anyone who knowingly perpetrates a political deepfake within 90 days of an election would face two to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[14825,8514],"class_list":["post-168323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","tag-democracy","tag-election","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=168323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=168323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=168323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=168323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}