SB441

SB441 expands criminal penalties and civil remedies for realistic, nonconsensual sexual deepfakes. It was signed June 20, 2025 and took effect September 1, 2025. This explains the 2025 enactment, not a ruling on its constitutionality or the outcome of an individual case. Enrolled law; Official history.

Criminal conduct. The earlier offense covered deceptively created videos. SB441 extends it to photographs, digital images and other visual recordings created or altered through software or other technology, when a reasonable person would find the depiction indistinguishable from an authentic depiction of a real person doing something that did not happen. It removes the definition’s separate intent-to-deceive requirement, but still requires knowing production or electronic distribution without effective consent. The material must show computer-generated intimate parts or another person’s intimate parts as the depicted person’s, or sexual conduct the depicted person did not engage in. Consent requires a knowingly and voluntarily signed, plain-language written agreement describing the media and, where applicable, the audiovisual work incorporating it. Sections 1–3; Prior offense.

Production or distribution is ordinarily a Class A misdemeanor, elevated to a third-degree felony for a prior conviction under this section or a depicted person younger than 18. Intentionally threatening to produce or distribute deepfake media with intent to coerce, extort, harass or intimidate is a separate Class B misdemeanor, elevated to Class A for a prior conviction or a threat involving a depicted person younger than 18. A disclaimer saying the media is fake or unauthorized is not a defense. Courts must order restitution for resulting psychological, financial or reputational harm. Penalties, threats and restitution.

The law provides affirmative defenses for production or distribution in lawful law-enforcement practices, reporting unlawful activity and legally permitted or required proceedings. For the production/distribution offense, specified transmitting service providers have a defense when acting solely in a technical, automatic or intermediate role. Publicly accessible AI providers or developers have a defense only with the required acknowledged user-policy prohibition and affirmative technological prevention steps; the law gives examples including detection training, reporting tools and output/training-data filtering. These are conditional defenses, not blanket immunity for every platform or developer. Section 21.165(c-3)–(c-5).

Civil claims. A depicted person may seek damages for production, solicitation, disclosure or promotion of artificial intimate visual material when it is without effective consent, intended to harm, actually causes harm and reveals the person’s identity. The definition requires computer-generated intimate material recognizable as a real person and indistinguishable from that person to a reasonable viewer. Civil consent means a free, affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement without coercion, fraud or misrepresentation. The new cause of action does not repeat the older disclosure claim’s reasonable-expectation-of-privacy requirement. Sections 5–6; Older disclosure claim.

The bill also provides damages liability for owners who recklessly facilitate paid production/disclosure on a website or app, owners of publicly accessible nudification apps primarily designed and marketed to produce this material, and people who recklessly process or facilitate the specified payments—when they know or recklessly disregard the depicted person’s lack of consent. Separate removal provisions address website/app owners: after a depicted person requests removal, the law requires removal within 72 hours of receipt and reasonable efforts to identify and remove known identical copies. Owners must provide an easily accessible request system and a clear, conspicuous, plain-language notice explaining the removal process. Violations of those removal/system/notice provisions are actionable as deceptive trade practices; the attorney general may seek an injunction for repeated violations and, if successful, costs and attorney’s fees. Section 98B.0022.

Important limit: SB441 does not repeal the existing Chapter 98B exception for a claim against an interactive computer service for disclosure or promotion of intimate material supplied by someone else. That retained exception must be considered alongside the new provisions; the bill does not establish automatic liability for every service carrying a user’s post. Retained statutory exception.

Chapter 98B claimants may use a confidential identity, including a pseudonym and withheld identifying details. Courts must explain that option, protect records and restrict disclosure; judges, parties, their attorneys and specifically court-authorized people can still know the true identity. Suit must be filed within 10 years after the later of reasonable discovery of the intimate material or the depicted person’s 18th birthday. The civil changes apply only to claims accruing on or after September 1, 2025. The criminal changes apply only to offenses committed on or after that date; an offense with any element before that date stays under the prior law. Confidentiality, deadlines and transition rules.