FRESNO, CA (KMJ) A satire news outlet has filed suit against California over new state laws that they claim makes satire illegal.
Governor Gavin Newsom this week signed several bills into law that focus on “deepfake” videos and stories published on social media and elsewhere.
The Babylon Bee website filed suit, alleging the laws clamp down on free speech and violate the First Amendment.
One of the laws requires satirical content to be clearly labeled as such or removed.
The CEO of the Babylon Bee, Seth Dillon, says requiring a disclaimer to let readers know an article is a parody stifles the joke.
The suit follows another brought by a YouTube parody creator in California that similarly targeted the laws, which require social media platforms to take down materially deceptive election content and ban the distribution of AI-generated election content made with malicious intent.
The California legislature passed the laws, the suit says, after Gov. Newsom complained about a parody video of Kamala Harris.
“California’s war against political memes is censorship, plain and simple. We shouldn’t trust the government to decide what is true in our online political debates,” said Alliance Defending Freedom’s Jonathan Scruggs. “Gov. Newsom has no constitutional authority to act as the humor police. While lawmakers act as if posting and resharing memes is a threat to democracy, these laws, at the end of the day, censor speech California politicians don’t like.”
In signing the laws, Newsom said he was protecting the public.
“Safeguarding the integrity of elections is essential to democracy, and it’s critical that we ensure AI is not deployed to undermine the public’s trust through disinformation – especially in today’s fraught political climate,” Newsom said. “These measures will help to combat the harmful use of deepfakes in political ads and other content, one of several areas in which the state is being proactive to foster transparent and trustworthy AI.”
