Law / United States / Texas
Political deep fake video ban (originally S.B. 751, 2019)
Tex. Elec. Code § 255.004(d)-(e)
A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.
In force since 1 September 2019.
An AI prohibited practices rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 6 September 2026.
What it requires
- Do not create a deep fake video and cause it to be published or distributed within 30 days of an election, if you intend to injure a candidate or influence the election's result.
- A deep fake video is one created with intent to deceive that appears to depict a real person performing an action that did not occur in reality.
What it reaches
Obligation class
Prohibition
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
A person commits an offense if, with intent to injure a candidate or influence the result of an election, the person creates a deep fake video, defined as a video created with intent to deceive that appears to depict a real person doing something that did not occur, and causes it to be published or distributed within 30 days of an election.
This deep fake-specific offense is unaffected by Ex parte Stafford, in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals struck down as facially unconstitutional the same section's separate general provision, subsection (b), which had made it an offense to knowingly misrepresent in a campaign communication that it emanates from a source other than its true source; the court's holding was confined to that provision.
When LexLint raises it
generates_content
Read the law
official codified text, Texas Constitution and Statutes, Texas Legislative Council