Law note · California

AB 2839, election materially deceptive deepfake disclaimer law

Citation	Cal. Elec. Code Section 20012
Status	Enjoined
In force	2024-09-17
Reviewed	as of 2026-08-14

As enacted, prohibited knowingly distributing, with actual malice, materially deceptive AI-generated election media within specified windows around an election, and required a conspicuous manipulation disclaimer for satire or parody content to qualify for that exemption. A federal district judge (Senior District Judge John A. Mendez, E.D. Cal.) granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs on First Amendment grounds and permanently enjoined enforcement on 2025-08-29; multiple independent secondary sources (Global Freedom of Expression / Columbia, EPIC's docket summary) consistently describe the injunction as running against enforcement against the named plaintiffs (Kohls, The Babylon Bee, Rumble, X Corp.), not as an explicit facial or statewide bar, though no source reviewed quoted the order's own injunctive-relief paragraph verbatim. The State's appeal to the Ninth Circuit (Babylon Bee, LLC v. Bonta, No. 25-6138, consolidated with the AB 2655 claims) had briefing complete as of 2026-03-11 with no decision issued as of this review (2026-08-14). This is litigation-aware status, not the in_effect status the legacy corpus recorded.

Primary source: official California Legislative Information (leginfo) chaptered bill text, for the statute
secondary litigation-tracker reporting for the 2025-08-29 ruling and pending appeal, not an independently pulled court order

← Back to the example  ·  Lint your app →