Bill Text: HI SB2396 | 2024 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Relating To Elections.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 2-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2024-02-09 - The committee on JDC deferred the measure. [SB2396 Detail]
Download: Hawaii-2024-SB2396-Introduced.html
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THE SENATE |
S.B. NO. |
2396 |
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THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2024 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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A BILL FOR AN ACT
relating to elections.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:
SECTION 1. The legislature finds that deepfakes are any form of media that has been altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone, typically in a way that shows the person saying something that was never said. Deceptive and fraudulent deepfakes have become a tool for political misinformation that further disrupts public trust in government. Legislation has been enacted in various jurisdictions, including California, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin to prevent and punish the spread of misinformation through deepfakes.
The purpose of this Act is to hinder the
spread of political misinformation in the State by prohibiting
the distribution of electioneering communications before an election that a
person knows or should have known are deceptive and fraudulent deepfakes of a
candidate or party.
SECTION 2. Chapter 11, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:
"§11- Synthetic
media; deceptive and fraudulent deepfake; prohibitions; exceptions. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), no
person shall, within ninety days prior to a primary or general election,
distribute a synthetic media message in an electioneering communication that
the person knows or should have known is a deceptive and fraudulent deepfake of
a candidate or party.
(b)
The prohibition in subsection (a) shall not apply if the electioneering
communication containing the synthetic media includes a disclosure statement stating: "This [image/audio/recording/video
recording] has been manipulated or generated by artificial intelligence.",
and:
(1) If the media
consists of an audio recording only, the disclosure statement shall be read in
a clearly spoken manner and in a pitch that can be easily heard by the average
listener, at the beginning of the audio, at the end of the audio, and, if the
audio is greater than two minutes in length, interspersed within the audio at
intervals of no more than two minutes each; and
(2) For visual
recordings, the text of the disclosure statement shall appear in a size that is
easily readable by the average viewer and no smaller than the largest font size
of other text appearing in the visual media; provided that if the visual media
does not include any other text, the disclosure statement shall appear in a
size that is easily readable by the average viewer; provided further that for
visual media that is video, the disclosure statement shall appear for the
duration of the video.
(c) A
candidate whose appearance, action, or speech is depicted through the use of a
deceptive and fraudulent deepfake in violation of subsection (a) may seek
injunctive or other equitable relief prohibiting the publication of the
deceptive and fraudulent deepfake.
(d)
The campaign spending commission may conduct investigations into the
publication of deceptive and fraudulent deepfakes and assess administrative
fines.
(e) A
candidate whose appearance, action, or speech is depicted using a deceptive and
fraudulent deepfake in violation of subsection (a) may bring an action for
general or special damages against the person that distributed the deceptive
and fraudulent deepfake. The court may
award a prevailing party reasonable attorneys' fees and costs.
(f)
Nothing in this section shall limit or preclude a plaintiff from seeking
any other available civil remedy.
(g)
This section shall not apply to:
(1) A radio or
television broadcasting station, including a cable or satellite television
operator, programmer, or producer, that broadcasts synthetic media as part of a
bona fide newscast, news interview, news documentary, or on-the-spot coverage
of bona fide news events, if the broadcast clearly acknowledges through content
or a disclosure statement, in a manner that can be easily heard or read by the
average listener or viewer, that there are questions about the authenticity of
the synthetic media;
(2) A radio or
television broadcasting station, including a cable or satellite television
operator, programmer, or producer, when the station is paid to broadcast a
synthetic media and has made a good faith effort to establish the depiction in
the synthetic media is not a deceptive and fraudulent deepfake;
(3) An internet
website, or a regularly published newspaper, magazine, or other periodical of
general circulation, including an internet or electronic publication, that
routinely carries news and commentary of general interest, and that publishes
deceptive and fraudulent deepfakes prohibited by this section, if the publication
clearly states that the deceptive and fraudulent deepfake does not accurately
represent the speech or conduct of the candidate; and
(4) Synthetic media
that constitutes satire or parody.
(h) If any provision of this section, or the application
thereof to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the invalidity does not
affect other provisions or applications of this section that can be given
effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this end the
provisions of this section are severable.
(i) As used in this section:
"Artificial
intelligence" means:
(1) An artificial
system that performs tasks under varying and unpredictable circumstances
without significant human oversight or that can learn from experience and
improve performance when exposed to data sets;
(2) An artificial
system developed in computer software, physical hardware, or other context that
solves tasks requiring human-like perception, cognition, planning, learning,
communication, or physical action;
(3) An artificial
system designed to think or act like a human, including cognitive architectures
and neural networks;
(4) A set of
techniques, including machine learning, that is designed to approximate a
cognitive task; or
(5) An artificial
system designed to act rationally, including an intelligent software agent or
embodied robot that achieves goals using perception, planning, reasoning,
learning, communicating, decision-making, and acting.
"Deceptive and fraudulent
deepfake" means synthetic media that depicts a candidate or party with the
intent to injure the reputation of the candidate or party or otherwise deceive
a voter and that:
(1) Appears to a
reasonable person to depict a real individual saying or doing something that
did not actually occur in reality; or
(2) Provides a
reasonable person a fundamentally different understanding or impression of the
appearance, action, or speech than a reasonable person would have from the
unaltered, original version of an image, an audio recording, or a video
recording.
"Synthetic media" means
an image, an audio recording, or a video recording of an individual's
appearance, speech, or conduct that has been created or intentionally
manipulated with the use of generative adversarial network techniques or other
digital technology in a manner to create a realistic but false image, audio
recording, or video recording."
SECTION 3. New statutory material is underscored.
SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.
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INTRODUCED BY: |
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Report Title:
Elections; Electioneering Communications; Synthetic Media; Deepfakes; Prohibitions
Description:
Prohibits the distribution of electioneering communications before an election that a person knows or should have known are deceptive and fraudulent deepfakes of a candidate or party.
The summary description
of legislation appearing on this page is for informational purposes only and is
not legislation or evidence of legislative intent.
