While you’re head down until Election Day, AAPC Advocacy is here watching key developments and opportunities that impact our industry. Our focus is on what matters to you, so you can focus on what matters to your clients. With that in mind…

What you need to know about GOVERNMENT POLICY changes:

CALIFORNIA: Governor Gavin Newsom signed a suite of bills on Tuesday targeting deepfakes in communication depicting candidates or election officials. The bills mandate that large media platforms label or remove election-related deepfakes, require political ads with AI-generated or substantially altered content to include disclaimers across all media types (radio, TV, print and online), and bans the creation and publication of deepfake content 120 days before and 60 days after an election. The laws are effective immediately. The suite of laws are available here, here, and here. Be sure you understand the new requirements before deploying content in California created with digital tools. A lawsuit has already been filed challenging the constitutionality of the new laws.

AAPC Member Benefit: Download the AAPC AI leg tracker for more on which states regulate the use of AI in political ads.

FEC: Yesterday, the FEC voted to issue no new rulemaking regulating or prohibiting the use of AI by political campaigns, clarifying that the fraudulent use of AI is already regulated by existing statutes that “apply irrespective of the technology used to conduct fraudulent misrepresentation.” The AAPC submitted comment last summer opposing the proposed rulemaking. Read more from Holtzman Vogel.

FCC: While that closes the book on new regulations from the FEC before Election Day, the FCC is still considering creating new regulations on AI before the election. Yesterday, the AAPC submitted comment opposing proposed rulemaking by the FCC that would regulate the use of AI in political, candidate, or issue ads aired by broadcasters, requiring an on-air announcement disclosing the use of any generative-AI in the creation of television and radio advertisements and require broadcasters to disclose the use of AI in online political files. The AAPC staunchly opposes the use of deceptive media and deep fakes but the “proposed rule is overly broad and arbitrary, exceeds the authority of the FCC, threatens to harm protected speech, and fails to address the true problem of deceptive AI-generated content.” Read AAPC‘s comment letter.