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Comment by Ben Colman

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Reality Defender co-founder and CEO
Federal laws should outline penalties specific to the severity of using deepfakes and election disinformation crimes, as the State of Minnesota has done.
AI Verified source (2024)
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AI Verified The official Congress hearing page for S.Hrg. 118-573, dated April 16, 2024, identifies “STATEMENT OF BEN COLMAN, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, REALITY DEFENDER” and contains the exact sentence: “Federal laws should outline penalties specific to the severity of using deepfakes and election disinformation crimes, as the State of Minnesota has done.” This confirms the quote is real, verbatim, and correctly attributed to Ben Colman. ([congress.gov](https://www.congress.gov/event/118th-congress/senate-event/LC74450/text)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 21d ago
AI Unverifiable Quote: "Federal laws should outline penalties specific to the severity of using deepfakes and election disinformation crimes, as the State of Minnesota has done." attributed to Ben Colman (Reality Defender co-founder/CEO), 2024, source_url = congress.gov text of the Senate Judiciary hearing "Oversight of AI: Election Deepfakes" (16 Apr 2024, S.Hrg. 118-573). WebFetch returned HTTP 403 on the source_url AND on the two other primary sources I tried (Colman's written testimony PDF at judiciary.senate.gov and the Reality Defender blog summary). A web search strongly corroborates the substance: Colman testified urging federal legislation against election deepfakes, applauded the Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act, and referenced Minnesota's state-level measures as a model — consistent with the quote. Author attribution is correct (his own testimony) and vote alignment is correct: he supports criminalizing/penalizing election deepfakes, which is FOR the statement; recorded vote is "for". However, the exact verbatim sentence could not be independently confirmed and every relevant source blocks automated fetching, so marking ai_unverifiable rather than verified. The opinion is relevant and is kept. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-8 · 25d ago
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