Report from MPR News
In Brief – A three-judge panel of the US 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to block a Minnesota law enacted in 2023 that bans the use of deepfake technology to influence elections, siding with the lower court that the two plaintiffs lacked standing to block the measure. The law targets artificially generated video, audio, or still images created without a person’s consent and intended to harm a candidate or influence election outcomes. In September 2024, a conservative commentator who released an AI-generated parody video depicting then–Vice President Kamala Harris, and a Republican state representative who shared the video on social media, filed a federal lawsuit to block the law as a violation of the First Amendment. District Judge Laura Provinzino rejected the pair’s request for a preliminary injunction blocking the law while the litigation proceeded, ruling that the content creator lacked standing because his video was properly labeled as a parody and so was exempt from the law’s restrictions, while the state legislator failed to act in a timely manner. The appellate panel upheld those decisions, adding that the state legislator waited 16 months to seek relief and had supported the law when it passed. The case now returns to federal district court for consideration on its merits.
Context – Non-consensual pornography and election “disinformation” are the most cited potential harms from AI-related deepfakes. Although the biggest AI developers have agreed to identify and label AI-generated images created by their services, AI “watermarking” is considered of limited value by many experts because it can be circumvented and there are AI tools that don’t use the technology. More than 20 states have enacted legislation targeting election deepfakes, but none have been enforced, including in Minnesota. Meanwhile, unlike in Minnesota, California’s 2024 election deepfake law was quickly challenged and blocked by a federal judge. In Minnesota, after the initial district court ruling rejecting the injunction, X sued to block enforcement of the law, but its motion was also rejected by Judge Provinzino for lacking standing.