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Comment by Brent Skorup

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Cato Institute legal fellow
Lawmakers are alarmed by deepfakes—synthetic media that mimic reality—[...] especially in high-stakes election campaigns. Yet some of the new state deepfake laws raise serious First Amendment concerns.
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AI Verified The quote is authentic and correctly attributed. The Cato Institute commentary page at the provided URL, titled "Deepfake Crackdowns Threaten Free Speech," is by Brent Skorup and dated November 22, 2024. In the body text, it contains the full sentence matching your excerpt, with the omitted portion reading “fearing their potential to destroy reputations,” between the two shown parts. ([cato.org](https://www.cato.org/commentary/deepfake-crackdowns-threaten-free-speech)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 1d ago
AI Verified Quote: "Lawmakers are alarmed by deepfakes—synthetic media that mimic reality—[...] especially in high-stakes election campaigns. Yet some of the new state deepfake laws raise serious First Amendment concerns." attributed to Brent Skorup (Cato Institute legal fellow), 2024, source_url = cato.org "Deepfake Crackdowns Threaten Free Speech". WebFetch returned HTTP 403, but a web search confirmed the verbatim text: "lawmakers are alarmed by deepfakes—synthetic media that mimic reality—fearing their potential to destroy reputations, especially in high-stakes election campaigns, yet some of the new state deepfake laws raise serious First Amendment concerns." The single [...] correctly elides "fearing their potential to destroy reputations" (within the allowed limit). The piece (also published at Reason.com, 22 Nov 2024) argues vague terms and harsh criminal penalties in state deepfake-election laws clash with the First Amendment. Author attribution correct. Vote alignment correct: Skorup opposes criminalizing election deepfakes on free-speech grounds, which is AGAINST the statement "Criminalizing deepfakes and malicious use of AI in electoral campaigns"; recorded vote is "against". Year 2024 older but still relevant; opinion kept and verified. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-8 · 5d ago
replying to Brent Skorup