Lawmakers Raise Concerns Around Social Media Deepfakes, Meta’s Rollback of Election Safeguards

Washington, D.C. - As artificial intelligence makes it increasingly easy to spread deepfakes and other deceptive political content, federal lawmakers are raising concerns that Meta's rollback of election integrity safeguards could leave voters more vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation ahead of the 2026 elections.

Congressman Kevin Mullin (CA-15) is leading a coalition of 18 lawmakers in calling on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to provide more transparency in how the company will protect users from AI-generated disinformation and election interference after the social media giant discontinued its third-party fact-checking program and other key tools to stop the spread of false and deceptive election information.

"Generative AI has made it easier than ever to create convincing deepfakes and other deceptive content, and we're already seeing these tactics used to influence America's elections," Rep. Mullin said. "Meta, headquartered in my district, has rolled back key safeguards over the last few years designed to prevent the spread of misinformation, and this raises serious questions about whether it is prepared to meet today's rapidly evolving threats. While Meta is just one company, it runs some of the largest social media platforms in the world: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. Its decisions have a major impact on what Americans see every single day. American voters have a right to know whether what they are seeing online about candidates and elections is real or fake."

Over 53% of U.S. adults report getting news from social media platforms, making the integrity of information shared online increasingly critical to a healthy democracy. The rapid expansion of generative AI has introduced new challenges by allowing bad actors to create realistic deepfakes, cloned voices, and synthetic personas that can be used to impersonate candidates, spread false information, and manipulate voters at scale.

Deepfake content has already been deployed in primary elections across the country with AI-generated campaign ads impersonating political candidates and their opinions. At the same time, fake influencer accounts and profiles, advocating for certain views and candidates are amassing millions of views. For example, in April 2026, it was reported that a 22-year-old medical student in India used AI tools to fabricate "Emily Hart," a fake conservative MAGA "influencer," collecting thousands of subscribers before Instagram finally removed it for fraudulent activity. As AI tools make it easier to create convincing but false online identities, images, and videos, social media platforms must have effective safeguards in place to prevent deceptive content from reaching and influencing millions of users. Instead, in just the last month Meta launched a new AI tool to create deepfakes based on users' likeness without their consent, and the feature had to be removed shortly after it was launched.

"We are writing to express our concern over Meta's rollback of key safeguards designed to prevent the spread of misinformation on its platforms, and the risk this could pose to the 2026 elections in the United States," the lawmakers wrote. "We believe that Meta's approach to the 2026 election cycle is inadequate to address the threats now facing American elections - particularly given Meta's rollback of fact-checking, the automation of risk review, and the proliferation of AI generated content on Meta's platforms."

In the letter authored by Rep. Mullin, the lawmakers highlight concerns regarding Meta's discontinuation of its third-party fact-checking program, which helped to remove or down rank fraudulent or harmful content, and its move to rely on users who choose to write "Community Notes" instead. The letter also raises concerns about reports that Meta has shifted more privacy and integrity reviews to AI systems with less human oversight, and whether the platforms require social media influencers to disclose when they are paid to promote a political candidate.

Specifically, the lawmakers ask for Meta to share:

• How does Meta's staffing and budget for election integrity differ in 2026 compared to 2020 and 2024?

• What policies and enforcement mechanisms does Meta have for non-advertising AI-generated political content, such as deepfake videos, synthetic audio, and impersonation accounts? On average, how long does it take to remove this content across platforms?

• Does Meta require social media influencers who are paid to post political content to disclose that they are being paid and who is funding the content?

• Does Meta require advertisers to disclose when AI-generated images or audio are used in political ads in ways that could mislead users?

• Do state and local election officials have a dedicated way to report misleading voting information to Meta? If so, how is that reporting system staffed, and what was the average response time for reports from election officials in 2025 and 2026 to date?

• How does Meta enforce Facebook's real-name policy, and what verification is required? What steps does Meta take to prevent fake or bot accounts on Instagram and Threads?

• What information must non-paid Facebook Pages and third-party-managed accounts on Meta platforms disclose about who controls the account? Does Meta verify that information, and if so, how?

• What impact has Meta's Community Notes program had since January 2025 and how does it compare to the amount of misinformation flagged through Meta's former fact-checking program?

• How much content has Meta removed for violating its Community Standards since January 2025, compared with 2024 and 2023?

The letter was signed by Reps. Ansari (AZ-03), Beyer (VA-08), Casar (TX-35), Dean (PA-04), Dingell (MI-04), Foushee (NC-04), Garcia (TX-29), Goldman (NY-10), Grijalva (AZ-07), Magaziner (RI-02), Morelle(NY-25), Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Pelosi (CA-11), Sewell (AL-07), Simon (CA-12), Smith (WA-09), Thanedar (MI-13), Williams (GA-05).

The full letter can be found here.

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