Law / United States / 
California
AB 2839, election materially deceptive deepfake disclaimer law
An AI transparency rule binding public and private bodies.
- Criminal exposure
- No
- Private right of action
- Yes
- How the hook was established
- express
- What makes it apply
- Place of effect
- Obligation class
- Content labelling, Prohibition
- Audit expectation
- none
- Setting the rule reaches
- Elections
What it requires
- Enforcement is enjoined on First Amendment grounds, with the State's appeal pending, so read this as context rather than a live duty
- As enacted it barred knowingly distributing materially deceptive AI-generated election media, with actual malice, inside specified windows around an electionNIST AI RMFMAP 3.3
- It required a conspicuous manipulation disclaimer for satire or parody content to qualify for that exemptionNIST AI RMFMEASURE 2.8
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text. Also read by: Kohls v. Bonta, No. 2:24-cv-02527-JAM-CKD (E.D. Cal. ) (recorded ).
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 3.3Targeted application scope is specified and documented based on the system’s capability, established context, and AI system categorization.
- MEASURE 2.8Risks associated with transparency and accountability – as identified in the MAP function – are examined and documented.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-07Human-AI Configuration
- GAI-RISK-08Information Integrity
- GAI-RISK-11Obscene, Degrading, and/or Abusive Content
- OWASP Agentic Top 10
- ASI09Human-Agent Trust Exploitation
- MIT mitigations Draft
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-005System Acceptance Testing
- ETSI EN 304 223
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework, and in the NIST AI RMF, line by line beside each duty above. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
No regulator; as enacted, enforced only by the recipient of the content, a candidate or committee participating in the election, or an elections official, through a private civil action. Enforcement of the whole section is currently enjoined; see status.
Settledness
The order permanently enjoins the Attorney General and the Secretary of State from enforcing AB 2839 against the named plaintiffs.
- As of
- Case link
- https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-caed-2_24-cv-02527/pdf/USCOURTS-caed-2_24-cv-02527-26.pdf
- Case citation
- Kohls v. Bonta, No. 2:24-cv-02527-JAM-CKD (E.D. Cal. )
- Under challenge
- Yes
- Open questions
- Does the permanent injunction, which bars enforcement "against the named Plaintiffs", leave section 20012 enforceable against other distributors of materially deceptive content?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Section 20012(b) prohibits knowingly distributing, with malice, an advertisement or other election communication containing materially deceptive content in the windows around an election, and exempts content that carries the stated manipulation disclosure; subdivision (d) gives recipients, candidates and elections officials civil actions. The section states no duty to create, keep or produce on demand any record of a distribution or of a disclosure.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
As enacted, prohibited knowingly distributing, with actual malice, materially deceptive AI-generated election media within specified windows around an election, and required a conspicuous manipulation disclaimer for satire or parody content to qualify for that exemption.
A federal district judge (Senior District Judge John A. Mendez, E.D. Cal.) granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs on First Amendment grounds and permanently enjoined enforcement on ; multiple independent secondary sources (Global Freedom of Expression / Columbia, EPIC's docket summary) consistently describe the injunction as running against enforcement against the named plaintiffs (Kohls, The Babylon Bee, Rumble, X Corp.), not as an explicit facial or statewide bar, though no source reviewed quoted the order's own injunctive-relief paragraph verbatim.
The State's appeal to the Ninth Circuit (Babylon Bee, LLC v. Bonta, No. 25-6138, consolidated with the AB 2655 claims) had briefing complete as of with no decision issued as of the date shown (). This is litigation-aware status: the statute does not bind today.
How courts have read itPremium data
Our analysis of this law draws on 1 court ruling.
What each ruling held, what it means for an app, and whether it still stands are premium data, in the Plus, Pro and Enterprise plans.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app generates audio with AI, generates images with AI or generates video with AI.
Back to the example · Lint your app
Page updated .