Popular satirical site Babylon Bee is suing Gavin Newsom over new laws that claim to target “deepfakes,” or highly advanced, hyper realistic AI-generated media capable of creating confusion and discord especially in the political world, but that CEO Seth Dillon argues would crack down on obvious satire.
The Daily Wire reports:
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and shared exclusively with The Daily Wire, begins by noting that in July of this year, Newsom tweeted that a parody video of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris should be “illegal.” “The legislature heard the call and passed two laws that forbid political expression under the label of ‘materially deceptive content,’” the lawsuit asserts.
Many argued that despite using artificial intelligence to imitate the vice president’s voice, there was no way the video in question could be mistaken as official campaign content by a reasonably intelligent voter.
It also raised questions about what censorship advocates genuinely believe about voting as an institution, if politicians like Gavin Newsom believe their constituents are unable to detect clear parody, but capable of voting on critical issues like taxes or immigration.
It seems the conservative satirists have a higher opinion of California voters than their own governor.
The Daily Wire continues:
The Bee’s complaint against California argues that satire and parody are protected speech under the First Amendment “because it trusts the American people to be able to think and decide for themselves in the context of debating political candidates and issues.”
Dillon explained the burden that California’s new laws would place on his business.
In his first public statement on the lawsuit, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon told Daily Wire news podcast “Morning Wire” that one of the new California laws especially targets satirists, such as the writers at his company, “by requiring them to put disclaimers to let you know that this is parody that you’re reading right now – which completely stifles and kills the joke.”
In an interview with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley, Dillon said, “If we’re unable to publish satire without putting disclaimers all over it, and we’re going to face potential penalties if we don’t do that, then that’s a very serious issue too. So we’re fighting back in every way that we can against laws that clamp down on speech.”
The Bee is far from the only outlet or publisher affected by these censorship efforts, consistently coming from one party and its allies.
The Bee’s new lawsuit adds to the growing list of complaints directed at government entities related to the censorship of conservative content. Late last year, The Daily Wire, along with The Federalist and the state of Texas, filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration. The suit alleges that the U.S. State Department is funding censorship technology that targets opposing political opinions, especially those expressed in conservative media outlets.
I like Ms. Drake’s reporting.