There is a lot of discussions about the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and synthetic media in politics. This year, the Washington State Legislature passed Senate Bill 5152, defining synthetic media in campaigns for public office.
What is the law?
Political Advertising must identify the sponsor of the advertisement. Political advertisements undertaken as independent expenditures or which are distributed within 60 days of an election must also disclose the five persons or entities making the largest aggregate contributions to the advertisement’s sponsor of at least $1,000, and the top three individual contributors to any of the top five donors which are political or incidental committees.
What is not allowed?
A person cannot sponsor, with actual malice, a defamatory statement in political advertising
that:
- contains a false statement of material fact about a candidate for public office;
- falsely represents that a candidate is an incumbent for the office sought; or
- falsely indicates that a candidate has the support or endorsement of an organization.
The rise of Artificial Intelligence
Advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) led to the development of technology where a person in an existing image or video is replaced with another person’s likeness, and techniques to generate new synthetic audio of a person’s speech based on past recordings of the person. There is a fear that synthetic media in politics will be misused and abused.
Media created through machine learning to falsely depict a person’s speech or conduct are known as synthetic media or deepfakes.
The New 2024 Law defines “Synthetic Media.
The new law defines synthetic media as an image or audio or video recording of a person’s appearance, speech, or conduct, that has been manipulated to create a realistic or false image, audio, or video that:
- would appear to a reasonable person of a real individual, but did not occur in reality; and
- would cause a reasonable person to have a fundamentally different understanding of the content of the media than of the unaltered media.
Prohibiting the use of Synthetic Media.
An electioneering communication which contains synthetic media may not be distributed without a disclosure. The disclosure must state that the media has been manipulated and:
- for visual media, be printed in at least the largest font size of other text in the media or a size easily readable for the average viewer;
- for video media, appear for the duration of the video; and
- for audio media, be read in a clearly spoken manner and a pitch easily heard by the average listener at the beginning and end of the audio, and at least every two minutes during the audio, if applicable.
Cause of Action for Violations
A candidate whose voice or likeness appears in synthetic media distributed without the required disclosure within 60 days of an election may seek to enjoin distribution of the media and bring an action for general or special damages against the party distributing the media.
Prevailing parties may be awarded attorneys’ fees and costs.
Your Local Attorneys
Althauser Rayan Abbarno has been representing individuals and businesses throughout Washington for over 75 years. To learn more or schedule a consultation, call (360) 736-1301 or visit CentraliaLaw.com.
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