Panel reviews proposed committee amendments to S.23, the Synthetic Media and Elections bill

The Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee reviewed a set of proposed committee amendments to S.23, the Synthetic Media and Elections bill, after taking testimony. Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Council, presented five suggested changes intended to narrow or clarify disclosure and enforcement provisions in the bill as it passed the Senate.

Segal said the first change would alter the required font-size standard for a disclosure that must accompany "deceptive and fraudulent synthetic media consisting of images and video recordings." He described the existing provision and the proposed adjustment: the bill's Senate-passed text required the disclosure to be "in a size that is easily readable by the average viewer" and also said it be "not smaller than the largest font size of other text appearing in the visual media." Segal said the amendment would put a period after the first sentence and strike the latter clause because that requirement "could be too onerous on producers of media" and could force the disclosure to be as large as the largest ad text. He summarized the intended standard: the requirement "would just be easily readable by the average viewer."

Segal also proposed striking a separate, now-redundant sentence that addressed the same readable-size rule when an image or video includes no other text. A third proposed change would expand an exception for bona fide news programming to add "commentary of general interest" alongside newscasts, interviews and documentaries. Segal said the drafting team added that phrase to align language in adjacent subdivisions and noted there is no precise statutory definition; Representative Blake referred to testimony from the Vermont Association of Black Polsters describing it as "a legitimate analysis of news events that have the right context to help the public understand complex issues." Segal noted that a court ultimately could construe the phrase's scope.

A fourth suggested amendment would add the word "distributes" to the satire/parody exception so that a person who merely reshared parody or satire would fall within that exception. Segal said the intent is to avoid unintentionally capturing ordinary parody or satire when the statute targets deceptive synthetic media that falsely purports to be authentic reporting of a person saying or doing something that did not occur.

The fifth change replaces the bill's section heading labeled "injunctions" with "enforcement" after consultation with staff; Segal said the broader heading better reflects the range of Attorney General or state's attorney remedies described in the enforcement provisions.

Committee members asked questions about the scope of "commentary of general interest," liability for distributors versus producers, and how existing campaign finance rules interact with this statute. Representative Nugent asked where liability would fall; Segal answered that the statute's definition targets persons who create synthetic material that reasonably appears to be authentic reporting of a person saying or doing something that did not occur and that the proposed language would exclude satire/parody and those who merely reshare it. Segal closed by saying the committee and interested parties would have a weekend to review the draft amendments and the committee would revisit the bill next week.

No formal committee vote on these proposed amendments was recorded in the transcript; the presentation was characterized as putting language "on the table" for further consideration.