FCC Fines Lingo Telecom $1 Million Over Sloppy Biden AI Deepfake That Targeted New Hampshire Voters

Earlier this year, you probably sawthe storyabout how a political consultant used a (very sloppy) AI" generated deepfake of Joe Biden in a bid to try and trick New Hampshire voters into staying home during the Presidential Primary. It wasn't particularly well done; nor was it clear it reached all that many people or had much of an actual impact.

But it clearly spooked the U.S. government, which was already nervously watching AI get quickly integrated inglobal political propaganda and disinformation efforts.

The deepfake quickly resulted in an uncharacteristically efficient joint investigation by the FCC and state AGs leading to multiple culprits, includingLife Corp., a Texas telecom marketing company, a political consultant by the name Steve Kramer (who claimed he was, like Paul Revere, just helping Americans) and a magician named Paul Carpenter, who apparently holds a world record in straitjacket escapes."

This week, the FCC announced that it had also fined another Texas-based telecom company, Lingo Telecom, $1 million for participating in the scam. Lingo, according to the FCC, helped transmit the bogus calls to voters using spoofed phone numbers. In addition to the fine, Lingo has agreed to a robust compliance plan" to ensure it remains on its best behavior moving forward.

Every one of us deserves to know that the voice on the line is exactly who they claim to be," FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.If AI is being used, that should be made clear to any consumer, citizen, and voter who encounters it."

The fracas prompted the FCC to take some additional actions to combat AI-generated robocalls, including a new ruling that makes such calls illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and another proposed rule that would require all robocallers to identify the use of AI in advance. I'd expect, post-Chevron, that several or all of these efforts could be challenged in court by telemarketers.

The FCC's history on meaningfully thwarting robocalls has been mixed; thanks to a combination of lobbying by the marketing and debt collection industries, dodgy court rulings narrowing the FCC's authority, and a general fecklessness when it comes to holding bigger, more politically influential telecom giants accountable for turning a blind eye to scams and fraud.

Meanwhile Kramer, the mastermind" of the entire affair, is facing his own $6 million finefrom the FCC, and has been charged by New Hampshire law enforcement with 26 criminal counts of voter intimidation and impersonating officials.