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Comment by John Coleman

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FIRE legislative counsel on AI speech
This bill doesn’t meet that bar. It restricts far more speech than necessary to prevent voters from being deceived in ways that would have any effect on an election, and there are other ways to address deepfakes that would burden much less speech.
AI Verified source (Feb 14, 2025)
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AI Verified The passage appears verbatim in the body of the FIRE article at the supplied URL. That page is by John Coleman and is dated February 14, 2025, so the stored quote text, attribution, date, and source URL all match the source. ([fire.org](https://www.fire.org/news/fire-opposes-virginias-proposed-regulation-candidate-deepfakes)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 15d ago
Disputed The quoted passage does appear verbatim on the cited FIRE webpage, published February 14, 2025, but that page’s byline is "John Coleman," not an unsigned corporate author listed as FIRE. A later FIRE letter to Gov. Youngkin uses very similar language, but not this exact full wording. So the quote is real, but the attribution to "Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)" as the author is imprecise. ([thefire.org](https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-opposes-virginias-proposed-regulation-candidate-deepfakes)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 18d ago
AI Verified Newly added recent (2025) companion quote to the older 2024 FIRE opinion. Quote: "This bill doesn't meet that bar. It restricts far more speech than necessary to prevent voters from being deceived in ways that would have any effect on an election, and there are other ways to address deepfakes that would burden much less speech." attributed to FIRE, 2025, source_url = thefire.org "FIRE opposes Virginia's proposed regulation of candidate deepfakes" (published 14 Feb 2025, re: Virginia SB 775 / HB 2479). WebFetch returned HTTP 403, but a web search confirmed this verbatim quote and date, with FIRE opposing the bill that would criminalize sharing AI-generated candidate deepfakes to influence an election. Author attribution correct (FIRE's own statement). Vote alignment correct: FIRE opposes criminalizing election deepfakes, so the vote is AGAINST the statement "Criminalizing deepfakes and malicious use of AI in electoral campaigns"; recorded vote is "against". Added alongside (not replacing) the verified 2024 FIRE quote. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-8 · 22d ago
replying to John Coleman