On Monday, the popular US-based satire website Babylon Bee sued the Government of California over the new laws brought up by the Democratic government to combat ‘misinformation’ and ‘deepfake’.
The lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California states that in July of this year, Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that a parody video of Democratic presidential candidate 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,” stated the complaint.
According to the complaint, one of California’s new regulations will obligate social media platforms to become “state snitches” and compel them “to field reports about user posts with ‘materially deceptive content’ and then remove or label them.”
“The second law (AB 2655) converts social media platforms into California state snitches by requiring them to field reports about user posts with “materially deceptive content” and then remove or label them. Newsom eventually signed the bills, proudly tweeting that the laws now outlawed the political parody video that upset him earlier. For Newsom, it was mission accomplished,” the complaint reads.
Alleging that Governor Gavin Newsom and the California government disregarded the First Amendment while framing the new laws and said: “Their laws regulating “materially deceptive content” forbid anyone from posting or reposting content that harms a candidate’s “reputation” or “electoral prospects,” “influences an election in California,” undermines “confidence in” an election’s “outcome,” and more.”
The complainants alleged that the government is using terms like reputation, electoral prospects etc, as code words allowing the government officials and political opponents to sue people and companies over the content they dislike. “These broad and vague laws will chill speech and debate that criticizes politicians and their platforms,” the complaint reads.
In addition to highlighting the history and relevance of satire and parody, The Bee stated that it intends to continue creating and publishing digitally created or modified satire and parody content on its own website, X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube about politicians like Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, presidential and vice presidential candidates for office “who appear on the ballot in California, other candidates who appear on the ballot in California, elected officials saying or doing something in connection to an election in California, and ballots, voting machines, and voting sites related to an election in California.”
Criticising the ‘Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act of 2024’, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillion said that one of the provisions of the law specifically targets satirists including writers at the Babylon Bee. Dillion emphasised that adding explicit disclaimers to let readers know that this is parody content would stifle the essence of the joke. He added that the new law is problematic in both ways as, if parody content is required to include disclaimers, then it would make the content devoid of its intended comic essence and if they do not add disclaimers, the company would face legal penalties.
“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. 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 Babylon Bee CEO told DailyWire.
Notably, the lawsuit is filed against California Attorney General Rob Bonta, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, and Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Soto.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk backed the Babylon Bee in its lawsuit against the state of California and said: “Great”.
Great https://t.co/0IJgdeG1g6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 1, 2024
The controversial AB 2655, AB2355 and AB 2839 laws
California has recently passed three new measures aimed at reducing the dissemination of ‘disinformation’ and ‘fraudulent’ electoral content. The laws (AB 2655, AB 2839, and AB 2355) claim to seek to bolster protections against digitally manipulated material in political communications and commercials. While the first two legislations do not specifically reference artificial intelligence (AI), the spread of AI deepfakes, mainly those associated with election material, was the impetus for their enactment.
In a nutshell, AB 2655 (Defending Democracy From Deepfake Deception Act of 2024) puts specific removal obligations on significant web platforms in the 120 days preceding up to an election, as well as transparency rules that go beyond that time frame. AB 2839 (Elections: Deceptive Media in Advertisements) in a broader way restricts the distribution of election communications containing certain materially deceptive content. AB 2355 (Political Reform Act of 1974: Political advertisements: Artificial Intelligence) requires disclaimers on AI-generated commercials published by political committees.
The Defending Democracy From Deepfake Deception Act of 2024 (Defending Democracy Act) requires large online platforms to implement “state-of-the-art” procedures for identifying and removing materially deceptive content, as well as provide disclaimers about the inauthenticity of such content during election periods.
The law explains “large online platform” as “a public-facing internet website, web application or digital application, including a social media platform as defined in Section 22675 of the Business and Professions Code, video sharing platform, advertising network, or search engine that had at least 1,000,000 California users during the preceding 12 months.”
Under the Business and Professions Code, Section 22675, any public online service or application that has users in California and facilitates social interaction by allowing users to create profiles, compile a list of their social connections, and share content is considered a social media platform. This classification, however, does not include services and applications that solely provide direct messaging or email facilities.
While on the face of it, the three new laws do not seem problematic and seem to be an effort to regulate misinformation, hate speech, and AI-generated deepfakes, especially in the context of election, however, as the lawsuit filed by The Bee asserts, the laws are designed in a manner that allows the government officials and the political opponents to use them against content they deem unfavourable.
California’s new laws force platforms to report or remove “materially deceptive” election-related content, such as AI-generated videos or altered photos, even if it is intended to be satirical and devoid of ‘malicious intent’. The most contentious law of the three, AB 2839, requires AI-generated parody content to contain a continuous disclaimer running across the whole video or image, significantly restricting the ability to engage in political satire. Is it so difficult for the democrats to comprehend that the purpose of satire is killed if it is revealed beforehand that the content is indeed satire? Evidently, the three new laws are deliberately crafted to stifle unfavourable voices, particularly in the wake of elections.
In fact, the controversy has been ongoing since last year, over another similar law that was criticised as a violation of First Amendment rights. Notably, The Bee had filed a similar lawsuit against the state of California last year over the government’s law AB 587 requiring tech platforms to provide reporting on hate speech and misinformation. However, as the Babylon Bee and podcaster Tim Pool contend, these regulations give the government disproportionate power over online expression of views by requiring platforms to report on “misinformation” and “hate speech”, these concepts, however, are highly subjective and could be used for censorship.
The ‘second phase’ of the ‘democratic’ attempts at stifling freedom of expression started in July this year when Governor Gavin Newsom published a post on X announcing that he would be signing a bill saying that electoral Ad parodies should be deemed “illegal”. In his post, Newsom shared a news article image which stated that X Corp owner and Trump supporter Elon Musk reposted the ‘manipulated’ Kamala Harris campaign ad posted by a conservative social media user, @MrReaganUSA, who is also challenging California’s three new laws. “Manipulating a voice in an “ad” like this one should be illegal. I’ll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is,” Newsom had posted on 29th July 2024.
Manipulating a voice in an “ad” like this one should be illegal.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 29, 2024
I’ll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is. pic.twitter.com/NuqOETkwTI
To this, Elon Musk retorted: “I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said parody is legal in America.” It is interesting that in just matter of a few months, parody and satire have become almost illegal in California.
I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said parody is legal in America 🤷♂️ https://t.co/OCBewC3XYD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2024
US and its past of censoring and ‘controlling’ speech while delivering sanctimonious sermons to India
The three new laws and last year’s censorship law AB 587 have been a continuation of the legacy of the Biden administration controlling speech in the country while conveniently colluding with select social media giants to curtail free speech and weaponize censorship. In August this year, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted to assisting the Biden-Harris administration in weaponising political censorship to curtail free speech on its platforms, Facebook and Instagram, during the COVID-19 pandemic. He revealed that the United States government, prodded by the White House, interfered in Meta’s content moderation process and coerced its management to censor ‘certain’ Covid-19-related information. On one hand, the Biden government preaches the sanctity of free expression (FoE) across the world, on the other, feels at ease twisting the arms of social media giants at home.
Similarly, X Corp published ‘Twitter Files’ exposing the deep entanglement between Twitter and various government agencies to control the narrative and suppress stories that served against the interests of the Democrat government as seen in the case of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was wiped from Twitter and other social media platforms, apparently to save President Joe Biden’s government.
Ironically, the democrats love to portray themselves as the champions of democratic values, press freedom and freedom of speech for the common people, however, it take delight in stifling the same ‘legally’ when they are at the receiving end of criticising. This hypocrisy, however, is not confined to the periphery of the US, the Biden administration also loves to lecture countries like India on free speech and hate speech by relying on dubious reports by biased sources. It is tragic and funny at the same time that a parody/satire website like The Babylon Bee has to approach the court to protect its freedom of speech because the Democrats cannot handle criticism, especially when it is blended with humour. The next time, the US contemplates delivering sermons to India on free speech, it should first take a look at the deplorable state of free speech at home.
