A screenshot from a YouTube video referencing a cooking oil safety scandal in Taiwan released on July 24 by Wei Chun-yu, a satirical video creator affiliated with opposition party Kuomintang (KMT). The words read: “So I am still here” in Mandarin.As voters in both the US and Taiwan head to the polls this November, Taiwan’s experience regulating deepfakes carries lessons for lawmakers in the US and beyond. As a principal target of information manipulation by China, Taiwan stands on the front line of cognitive warfare, the sustained influence operations aimed at shaping public opinion and influencing election results. In May 2023 — anticipating the weaponization of generative AI ahead of the January 2024 presidential election — Taiwan’s legislature amended its election laws to establish a dedicated mechanism to regulate political deepfakes. Under Article 51-3 of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act, candidates targeted by digitally manipulated audio or video may request a police forensic examination. If the content is officially verified as a deepfake, a candidate can demand that online platforms remove it. Platforms must act within two days, and noncompliance is subject to fines imposed by the Central Election Commission (CEC).Free speech has been protected in Taiwan since democratizing in the 1990s, under doctrines borrowed largely from US constitutional law, so the deepfake election law was designed with several safeguards in place to balance freedom of expression.…

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