The “No Fakes” Pledge

Our vision is that this pledge will constitute a bulwark against the dystopia that unrestrained weaponization of synthetic media for political purposes would lead to. If enough political campaigns, parties, and action committees join, this pledge will help set norms that will protect elections and improve the overall information sphere for decades to come.

 A candidate for office wishing to join may do so under advisement from their campaign manager and lead campaign attorney. If a candidate joins the pledge, all operations of that campaign will be considered bound by its terms. 

The governing board of the political party may, by formal vote publicly recorded, join this pledge. If a party joins the pledge, all operations of that party will be considered bound by its terms.

The governing board of the political action committee may, by formal vote publicly recorded, join this pledge. If a political action committee joins the pledge, all operations of that committee will be considered bound by its terms.

Participation in this pledge is voluntary. Any signatory may choose to cease participation at any time–but must give notice of intent before doing so. Those who withdraw will no longer be listed as signatories in any of our materials.

No. Entities that are apart from the signatory are not considered bound by the signatory’s participation, even if those entities act in support of the signatory. Signatory campaigns are not responsible for the actions of independent political action committees or the political party to which their candidate belongs. Signatory political parties are not responsible for the actions of candidates or independent political action committees. Signatory political action committees are not responsible for the actions of candidates or political parties.

We are considering how similar pledges could be introduced in areas outside of politics, but there are no plans to do so at this time.

There is no formal enforcement policy or process. We will never bring legal action or attempt to shame signatories that are out of compliance with their commitments. We may, after a period of unsuccessful engagement to resolve an issue, however, remove the signatory in question. Our expectation is that competitive incentives in the political arena, i.e., the desire to stand apart from rival candidates or parties and the incentive to highlight their bad behavior, and public scrutiny will be the primary mechanisms through which this pledge will influence the target population.

There is no formal criteria for what constitutes a violation. The specific points in the pledge may be subject to interpretation, for example words like “substantively.” In addition, we recognize that crude depictions or animations of events that are manifestly not intended to be understood as authentic are a use case for generative AI that does not fall under the spirit of this pledge. Generally, our intent is not to unfairly ensnare signatories in disputes over good faith efforts to avoid the proscribed actions and address complaints when raised by us or others.