this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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Political Memes

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If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 75 points 4 days ago (3 children)
  1. The law applies only to office holders, candidates, campaigns, or to people who buy or sell political advertising.
  2. People and platforms who post and distribute content without exchanging money are exempted.
  3. All the big media firms: tv, radio, ISPs, Internet content platforms, and billboard operators are exempted when they just run someone else's ads. The people who are liable are the ones who place the ads.
  4. The requirement is to include a disclosure message when depictions of a public figure have been altered by technology: Photoshop, AI, deepfake audio, or whatever else. The content itself is not censored, it just has to be noticed that it's artificial.
  5. "Superficial" alterations are exempted from the notice message, for example, changing the color balance on a video.
[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Honestly sounds reasonable to me. But it would be nice if they could include deterring that over dramatic black-and-white effect lol.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago

It sounds reasonable to me, too, but given that it was passed by the Texas legislature, I'm certain there's something nefarious about it. Texas politics is dirty tricks all the way down.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (3 children)

What does this actually accomplish then?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

A chilling effect and job security for lawyers.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

Hard to say for sure, but probably more "fine print" style notices on TV ads and billboards.

This could conceivably be used to prosecute dirty tricks-style campaigns. For example, many years ago there was an anonymous mailer campaign against the incumbent mayor in my city where a photograph of him was photoshopped to insinuate that had been beaten up, when he really hadn't. That kind of thing might become the target of this if it becomes law.

It's also possible that federal courts will step in and carve out some exceptions for obviously fake parody stuff. Texas law cannot override the first amendment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

About as much as Trump trying to do a pushup 🤷

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago

But will they face consequences?