February 2026

Across the Atlantic, governments are converging on a similar conclusion: deepfakes are no longer a future problem. But they are taking different routes to address it, Europe through a more centralized transparency and platform-risk regime, and the United States through a rapidly expanding patchwork of state laws plus targeted federal

The deepfake problem used to sound like a niche threat: a doctored celebrity clip here, a fake politician video there. In 2026, that framing is outdated. Synthetic media is now showing up where the incentives are most direct and the enforcement is most uneven: money, identity, and fast-moving trust decisions.

The latest signal came on February 17, 2026, when the European Commission announced it had opened formal proceedings against Shein under the DSA, focusing on alleged addictive design, lack of transparency in recommender systems, and the sale of illegal products including child sexual abuse material. The Commission emphasized the proceeding