Mississippi's AI Law Could Jail Colom — If Satire Fails

Here's a sentence you don't read every election cycle: a state party chairman wants the attorney general to lock up a Senate candidate over a video where his opponent hides behind a folder and flees down a Capitol hallway. Eleven days from Election Day, Mississippi's 2026 Senate race has stopped being a race and started being a courtroom drama with memes.

The video is not real. Everybody agrees on that. It was generated with AI, posted by the campaign of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom, and it depicts his opponent — Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith — being chased by reporters, covering her face with a leather folder, papers flying, before she slides into a black car. The caption says: "Based on a true story."

There was no AI disclosure anywhere on it.

On Oct. 22, Mississippi Republican Party chairman Mike Hurst wrote to Attorney General Lynn Fitch asking her to investigate whether Colom broke state law — Mississippi Code § 97-13-47, passed in 2024, which makes it a crime to knowingly disseminate a deceptive AI-generated "digitization" of a candidate within 90 days of an election with intent to injure. The penalty: up to a year in prison, a $5,000 fine, or both. Hurst also wants an injunction blocking Colom from using the video again.

Colom's campaign dismissed the request as a stunt. "Republicans are worried about November 3," campaign manager Gerard Henderson said.

So: a criminal statute, a satirical-ish video, and a loophole between them wide enough to drive a taco truck through — and Colom, as it happens, does campaign in a taco truck. Mississippi is about to test the question every state is ducking: where does an AI campaign ad stop being a joke and start being a crime?

Photo: The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. — the setting recreated in Colom's AI-generated ad. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Video That Started It

The ad shows an AI-generated Hyde-Smith confronted by journalists with cameras, microphones and bright lights. She covers her face with a folder and runs through the halls of the U.S. Capitol as reporters ask why she has not held a town hall. She escapes into a black car. The caption reads "Based on a true story" — and at no point does the ad disclose it was made with AI, the Mississippi Free Press reported.

The "true story" is real enough to look up. In September, a reporter for The Don Lemon Show tried to approach Hyde-Smith about a grand jury's decision not to indict anyone in the death of Nolan Wells. She refused an interview, walked to a security guard, and said, repeatedly, "Sir, I don't do the hallway interviews." Security told the reporter to stop harassing her; another guard escorted the senator as she boarded a train and left.

Colom leaned into the framing on Oct. 8: "The reality is, I'm pointing out her hypocrisy. She's on the committee that has jurisdiction over AI and data centers. She could regulate AI. She refuses to do it because they got her bought and paid for. ... I'm portraying a true story. She calls security on voters."

That is the entire case for the defense in one paragraph: it is a true story, and it is a joke. The entire case for the prosecution is one line of caption: nobody was told it was fake.

What the Law Actually Says

Mississippi's 2024 law sits inside a national wave — Mississippi and 30 other states now require disclaimers on AI-generated political ads, 31 states in total, all trying to solve the same problem with slightly different words. The Mississippi version is unusually blunt: a person who knowingly disseminates an AI-generated depiction of a candidate — a "digitization" — is guilty of a crime if they know it is a digitization and the dissemination takes place within 90 days of an election, is done without the depicted person's consent, or is done with intent to injure the candidate or influence the election. Conviction carries up to a year in prison, a $5,000 fine, or both.

We read the statute's elements as described across both Mississippi outlets and checked them against what Colom's campaign actually posted — and on the elements alone, Hurst's letter has a shape. The video went out weeks before the Nov. 3 election, well inside the 90-day window. Hyde-Smith plainly did not consent. And the video's intent — to make voters think less of her — is not a secret; it is the point of the ad.

Then comes the sentence that may decide everything. The statute does not apply to "content that constitutes satire or parody." Neither term is defined anywhere in the law.

The Satire Loophole — Hurst vs. Colom

Hurst isn't pretending the exemption doesn't exist. He's arguing it doesn't apply. His letter claims Colom's video is not a "parody" because it isn't "a 'literary or musical work' where 'the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule'" — borrowing a dictionary definition to box Colom out of the safe harbor. Colom, Hurst wrote, "attempted to make this video look real" to injure Hyde-Smith and influence the election, "not for comic effect."

"Mississippi law is clear. You cannot manufacture a fake video of your opponent and pass it off to voters as real in the final weeks of an election," Hurst wrote in an Oct. 22 news release. "Scott Colom didn't label this video as artificial intelligence. Instead, he claimed it was 'based on a true story.' That isn't satire. It isn't parody. It's deception, and Mississippi voters deserve better."

Colom's camp sees a different fight. "This is clearly an act of desperation and an attempt to weaponize public office against political opponents," Henderson wrote. "Instead, there are questions that deserve answers: Did Cindy Hyde-Smith misuse campaign funds for trips to Las Vegas? Why did she vote against releasing the Epstein files? ... This is a joke, but what isn't a joke is the impact of her record on Mississippi farmers, businesses, and working families." (The Las Vegas and Epstein claims are the campaign's own allegations; we found no independent verification.)

Hurst also quoted an Oct. 10 interview Colom gave to WAPT's Ross Adams, where the Democrat said the campaign was "trying to get young peoples' attention. We're trying to find greater ways to get their attention." The implication: this was engagement strategy with a casualty list, not comedy.

The legal observers quoted in the Mississippi press aren't picking a winner. The Free Press's analysis notes the satire exemption could plainly cover the video, and a legal expert told the paper that courts would have to decide whether it qualifies. Scott Brennen, director of NYU's Center on Technology Policy, said the same: it would be up to the courts to decide whether the ads violate Mississippi's law.

Here is the honest place to land: as of this writing, Fitch has announced nothing — no investigation, no decision, no statement. We searched for any public response from the attorney general's office and found none. A letter is not a case. A request is not a ruling. What is known is that the request exists; what is unknown is everything that comes next.

Photo: An infographic contrasting tell-tale signs of deepfakes with genuine footage (annotation text is in Polish). Illustration by Marek Jeleśniański, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

A Pattern — On Both Sides

The Oct. 22 letter frames the hallway video as part of a pattern, and the record supports the pattern part. In September 2025, Colom launched his campaign with a video that appeared to show him calling Hyde-Smith to "wish her a good night." Nothing disclosed the call was fake. The Mississippi GOP referred the incident to the FBI, the Justice Department, and acting U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner, with Hurst citing the federal impersonation statute, 18 U.S.C. § 912. It is unclear whether Colom faced any penalties — there have been no public statements on whether an investigation ever started.

Colom's defense then was the defense now, with more footnotes. He told the Mississippi Free Press that parodying a public figure is protected by the First Amendment, citing the Supreme Court's 1988 decision in Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell: "The video is an obvious parody. And the voice is clearly not Cindy Hyde-Smith and the voice never says that she's Senator Hyde-Smith."

But Hyde-Smith's side has its own fictional-content file, which Hurst's letter glosses over. Her campaign built colomforsenate.com — using Colom's name — opening with a pop-up mugshot and claims that the Democrat is a "transgender defender" backing "sex change surgeries for minors and inmates." The mugshot turned out to be real — from a 2001 misdemeanor arrest when Colom was 18. ("When I was a high school senior, one of my friends and I did something dumb and stayed out past curfew," Colom said in an Oct. 16 statement.) The Clarion Ledger reported it could not independently confirm the photo's authenticity before publication. Her campaign manager Jake Monssen called it "laughably ironic that the one person in this race producing AI-generated ads... is now standing behind false claims about AI to hide an arrest record."

Colom fired back with whereiscindyhydesmith.com, describing the senator as "missing" and "unavailable when Mississippi needs answers." A fake phone call and a fake chase video on one side; a lookalike campaign site and a dredged-up 2001 mugshot on the other. Calling any of this a clean fight requires squinting.

Why It Might Backfire Anyway

Here is the irony the NYU researchers keep pointing at. Brennen — who co-authored a recent report on AI in the 2026 cycle — told the Free Press that Colom's video would likely be classified not as a deceptive deepfake but as "slopaganda," philosopher Michal Klincewicz's term for the collision of propaganda and generative AI: content meant to manipulate beliefs for political ends, where most viewers can tell it's fiction. "Most viewers could clearly identify the video as fiction," Brennen said of the hallway ad.

That classification weakens Hurst's case — and the ad, too. Brennen's group has hypothesized that nasty, mean-spirited attack ads can backfire, with viewers thinking less of the candidate who made them. And the broader evidence on political advertising, he noted: "political ads rarely have a strong influence on what candidates voters select. They're more effective at mobilization, like getting people out to vote, getting them to events, at fundraising."

Which is why this legal fight might help Colom more than a quiet ad ever could. The lawsuit-request is the attention. Hurst quoted Colom saying the campaign is "trying to get young peoples' attention" — then handed him a news cycle about exactly that. And Colom has already shown he can convert attention: his earlier satirical "pick another protein" video mocking Hyde-Smith did roughly 2 million views on X alone, CNN reported.

The Race This Could Decide

None of this would matter if the race weren't suddenly, improbably alive. Mississippi hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly four decades. Trump carried the state by 23 points two years ago. By every normal rule, this should be over.

By every normal rule, Kamala Harris should not be campaigning in Columbus, Mississippi — but she did, alongside Colom on Oct. 22. Barack Obama cut an endorsement ad for him. All four of the Senate's Black Democratic senators have trekked to the state in recent weeks. A major Democratic super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced $1.2 million in ad spending for Colom. And Trump himself is headed to Corinth on Oct. 26 to rally for Hyde-Smith — presidents don't do rescue missions in states that are safe.

The math the Colom camp is selling: Mississippi has the largest Black electorate share of any state, at 35%. In March primaries, Democratic voting surged 75% over 2018 while Republican participation held steady. Three years ago, Democrat Brandon Presley came within about three points of beating Gov. Tate Reeves. Colom has done 60 town halls and raised nearly $4 million through September — he told CNN he's one of only four Democrats in 15 years to raise enough to run statewide TV ads in Mississippi.

Republicans call it delusion. "Mississippians know her record: billions brought home for infrastructure and rural health care; conservative judges confirmed and liberal ones blocked; tax relief for working families and small businesses," Monssen said in a statement to CNN. Veteran GOP operative Austin Barbour argued the parade of national Democrats could backfire: "They have woken up the Republican base, who was pretty darn sleepy before this."

Independent candidate Ty Pinkins is also on the Nov. 3 ballot. In a race this strange, worth remembering.

Reader Questions: What the Law Says, and What Happens Next

What does Mississippi's AI law actually say?
Mississippi Code § 97-13-47, passed in 2024, makes it a crime to knowingly spread an AI-generated "digitization" of a candidate within 90 days of an election, without their consent, or with intent to injure them or influence the election. Penalties run to a year in prison, a $5,000 fine, or both. It exempts "content that constitutes satire or parody" — without defining either term.

Can satire save Colom's ad?
Maybe — that is the whole fight. Hurst argues the video isn't parody because Colom tried to make it look real and never labeled it AI. Colom's camp calls it "clearly a joke." A legal expert told the Mississippi Free Press that courts would have to decide. There is no test case yet; this could be one of the first.

Has the attorney general done anything?
Nothing public, as of this writing. Fitch's office has not announced an investigation, a decision, or a statement. We searched for any public response and found none. This remains a request, not a case.

Is Colom's video the only questionable content in this race?
Not close. Colom's 2025 fake phone call drew an FBI/DOJ referral that went nowhere publicly. Hyde-Smith's campaign built the colomforsenate.com lookalike site and circulated a 2001 mugshot the Clarion Ledger couldn't independently verify at publication. Both camps are manufacturing things; they disagree about which manufactured things are crimes.

Could Colom actually go to jail?
The statute allows up to a year in prison — a ceiling, not a prediction. A conviction would require proving he "knowingly" spread a deceptive digitization, surviving the satire exemption, and surviving the First Amendment arguments Colom has already telegraphed (he cited Hustler v. Falwell after the 2025 referral). Nobody in any of the reporting will say how it comes out. Nobody knows.

What happens next?
Two clocks are running. The legal one: whether Fitch acts before Nov. 3 — and any court fight would almost certainly outlast the election. The political one: Harris rallied for Colom on Oct. 22 in Columbus; Trump rallies for Hyde-Smith on Oct. 26 in Corinth. Eleven days. The video stays up, and every headline about the letter is, functionally, another ad for it.

Who is Scott Colom?

Scott Colom is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Mississippi, a civil-rights attorney who has held some 60 town halls and raised nearly $4 million through September. He has been endorsed by former President Barack Obama, and Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned with him on October 22.

Our Take: The Caption Is the Crime — and the Defense

Strip away the letterhead and the press releases and this fight is about five words: "Based on a true story."

Those five words are doing two jobs at once. For Colom's campaign, they're the punchline — the wink that says we know you know this is fake, and that's what makes it funny. For Hurst, they're the smoking gun — the line proving Colom wanted viewers to believe the fake thing was real, which is exactly what the statute forbids.

Both readings are plausible, which is precisely the problem with the law. A statute that criminalizes AI depictions but exempts undefined "satire or parody" is not a law; it's a dare. It dares candidates to test the boundary, dares opponents to file complaints, and dares a court to define comedy. Mississippi passed it in 2024, and two years later it is getting its first real stress test — in a Senate race, 11 days out, with the cameras rolling.

Our read, for what it's worth: Hurst's legal argument is sharper than his political one. The "based on a true story" plus no AI disclosure equals deception argument is the strongest version of this case, and any court will take it seriously. But the political move — asking a Republican attorney general to investigate a Democratic challenger 11 days before the vote — hands Colom the one thing his campaign has proven it can convert better than anyone: attention. The hallway video was a solid viral hit. The letter about the video is national news.

The deeper botch belongs to the legislature, not either campaign. Thirty-one states have written AI-disclaimer laws; almost none define where parody ends and deception begins, because nobody wants to be the legislator who wrote the law that jailed a comedian. Mississippi wrote the exemption without the definition — so the first person to define it will be a judge, after the election is over, in a case about a video of a woman running from reporters with papers flying out of her hands.

That is a shoddy way to run an election. But it is, undeniably, a Mississippi way to run one.

Related: California just made it illegal to use AI performers in ads without telling you — how another state is drawing the line Colom's video crossed. Plus the industry's own AI safety watchdog — because when the laws are this vague, the labs write their own rules. And see how OpenAI's AI agents breached Australian government sites — more tech that moved first while accountability caught up later.

Sources

Reporting drew on the Clarion Ledger's Oct. 22 account by Bea Anhuci of the Mississippi GOP's letter to Attorney General Fitch; the Mississippi Free Press's Oct. 22 reporting on the letter and the statute plus its earlier deep-dive on the video and the "slopaganda" research; and CNN's Oct. 21 Mississippi Senate race coverage. Quotes are attributed to their original outlets above.

Published October 23, 2026 · By Daniel Rao

Daniel Rao covers US tech, AI policy and the collision between the two for TechPulse USA — from statehouse AI laws to the campaigns stress-testing them.