{"slug": "the-no-fakes-act-could-silence-satire-commentary-and-news", "title": "The NO FAKES Act Could Silence Satire, Commentary, And News", "summary": "The NO FAKES Act, intended to combat harmful AI-generated impersonations, would instead suppress satire, commentary, and news by importing DMCA-style takedown rules, according to a coalition of civil society groups including EFF. The bill creates a licensable federal likeness right that could strip individuals of control over their own face and voice, and imposes penalties up to $750,000 per work on platforms that guess wrong about protected speech.", "body_md": "The [NO FAKES Act](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/tell-congress-just-say-no-no-fakes) is supposed to target harmful AI-generated impersonations. But in reality, it will [make it easier to suppress](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/tell-congress-just-say-no-no-fakes) commentary, satire, and other lawful speech. That's why EFF has signed a [letter](https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/NO-FAKES-Summer-2026_FINAL-1.pdf) urging the Senate Judiciary Committee not to advance the bill in its current form.\n\n[Tell Congress to Say No to NO FAKES](https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-throw-out-the-no-fakes-act-and-start-over)\n\nIn the letter, EFF joins a coalition of civil society groups in pointing out that the bill would import many of the worst features of the DMCA notice-and-takedown system into an even broader range of online expression. Faced with a “heckler’s veto” over legal speech, platforms will have incentives to remove content first and ask questions later.\n\nThe bill offers no protection for a platform’s judgment about an often difficult question—whether a particular piece of content is satire, parody, commentary, or news. Any platform that guesses wrong faces penalties of up to $750,000 per work.\n\nNO FAKES could also undermine the rights of the people it is supposed to protect. The new federal “likeness” right could be licensed or transferred to others, so individuals will lose control over the use of their own face and voice. That’s not theoretical—workers in the entertainment industry are routinely asked to sign broad contracts about the future use of their likenesses.\n\nAs the letter notes:\n\nA background actor who signs a release on set or an ordinary person who clicks through a platform's terms of service could end up with the right to their own face and voice in someone else's hands, for years, with federal enforcement behind it.\n\nEFF and the other signatories urge Congress to examine existing legal remedies and pursue narrowly tailored solutions to genuine harms. The last thing we need is a sweeping new intellectual property right that threatens free expression.\n\nIn addition to EFF, the letter is signed by the Center for Democracy & Technology, the American Civil Liberties Union, Fight for the Future, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Organization for Transformative Works, Public Knowledge, the R Street Institute, The Future of Free Speech, and the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. Read the [full letter](https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/NO-FAKES-Summer-2026_FINAL-1.pdf) here.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-no-fakes-act-could-silence-satire-commentary-and-news", "canonical_source": "https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/no-fakes-act-could-silence-satire-commentary-and-news", "published_at": "2026-06-17 20:33:28+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-17 21:57:45.938891+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-ethics", "ai-safety"], "entities": ["EFF", "Center for Democracy & Technology", "American Civil Liberties Union", "Fight for the Future", "Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression", "Organization for Transformative Works", "Public Knowledge", "R Street Institute"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-no-fakes-act-could-silence-satire-commentary-and-news", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-no-fakes-act-could-silence-satire-commentary-and-news.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-no-fakes-act-could-silence-satire-commentary-and-news.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-no-fakes-act-could-silence-satire-commentary-and-news.jsonld"}}