Kansas legislation banning DeepSeek passes to state Senate after swell of support in House

Editor’s note: This article was written for a class at the University of Kansas’ William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications and distributed through the Kansas Press Association.

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TOPEKA — A bill seeking to ban DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence chatbot, from state devices has advanced in the Kansas Legislature.

HB 2313 passed the House, 95-27, on March 7, after an amendment made by bill sponsor, Kansas Rep. Nick Hoheisel (R-Wichita). The bill was introduced in the Senate on Monday.

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The amendment narrows the language of the bill by removing the phrase, “All state agencies shall prohibit the installation of any application that allows users to access an artificial intelligence platform of concern on any electronic device that is issued by the state agency,” in the bill text.

“We think that might be a little too broad, that would prohibit us having browsers on our laptops because you access DeepSeek through a browser, so we’re just going to simply strike that language to narrow this bill down a bit,” Hoheisel said during House proceedings.

Before passing, two lawmakers voiced their opposition to the bill.

Wichita Democratic Reps. John Carmichael and Ford Carr expressed concerns about the bill being a symbolic gesture to align with the Trump administration, rather than to address cybersecurity and national security issues.

“When it comes to matters of national security, cyber intelligence, cybersecurity, there are experts in that field,” Carmichael said during House proceedings. “Those experts are at the federal government level, and they can impose various safeguards on a national basis but our amateur attempts to do cyber security, in my judgment, are embarrassing.”

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Allison Muzzy is a junior at the University of Kansas studying journalism, political science, public policy and East Asian languages and cultures.