X Sues Minnesota Over State Law Regulating Election Deepfakes

Elon Musk’s X Corp. is alleging Minnesota’s law regulating the spread of election-related deepfakes online violates the social media platform’s First Amendment rights.

The state law “provides enormous incentives” for social media companies to censor protected speech on their platforms to avoid penalties and litigation, X said in a complaint filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Minnesota’s law, enacted in 2023 and amended last year, criminalized the dissemination of deceptive deepfakes depicting political candidates without their consent and with the intention to injure or “influence the result of an election.” The law applies ...