California signs new law Governor Gavin Newsom Legislation regulating AI-generated “deepfake” election content and requiring the removal of “misleading content” from social media is now being challenged in court.
According to the governor’s office, these new laws build on legislation passed years ago to regulate campaign ads and communications.
But two of the three new laws are being challenged in the US District Court for the Eastern District of California by a conservative poster — @MrReaganUSA — Fox News Digital has learned. The account posted the AI-generated post Parody of Harris campaign ad The story resurfaced after Newsom signed the bills and went viral.
“This adversely impacts freedom of expression, particularly for political commentators like Mr. Reagan who use satire to criticize public figures and depend on their social media audiences for their livelihoods,” the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a public interest firm that filed the suit on behalf of @MrReaganUSA, said in a news release.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom (Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)
Newsom’s office says the law would not ban memes or parodies, but would instead require all satirical or parody content to either remove its content or display a disclaimer label stating that the content has been digitally altered. One of the laws also exempts “materially misleading content that constitutes satire or parody.”
But Theodore Frank, a lawyer for the account holder suing California, pointed out in an interview with Fox News Digital that one of the laws contains a provision that requires social media platforms to have “a broad censorship mechanism and respond to complaints within 36 hours.”
“And what’s going to happen is that social media will ban us so they don’t have to build a big infrastructure to deal with this. They won’t look at whether something is considered a parody or not,” Frank said.
“There is a provision that allows lawsuits Frank said, “That’s not fair against the video creators, unless it has very burdensome disclosure requirements that basically require you to use the entire screen for the disclosure and they have to take years of videos and spend hours re-cutting them with the disclosure requirements and then have a disclosure that’s louder than the video, and it takes away from the whole comedy scene.”
The law makes it illegal to create and publish deepfakes before Election Day and 60 days after it. It also gives courts the power to block the distribution of the material and impose civil penalties, according to the Associated Press.
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A conservative X account that posted an AI-generated parody of a Kamala Harris campaign ad is at the center of a lawsuit challenging new California laws banning AI “deepfakes” on social media. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images)
According to the company’s website, X allows parody accounts, provided they “distinguish themselves as such in their account name and in their bio.” The platform has no rules about individual posts being parodies and has been known to label a post a deepfake if the poster does not do so.
Such laws already exist in AlabamaAnd Frank said he’s prepared to file a lawsuit against them, too.
He added, “I don’t think Republicans are immune to extreme legislation in this area, but there are certainly other states that are doing it. And you know, I think it depends on who’s in power and who’s being mocked.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Newsom spokesperson Izzy Garden said, ,The person who created this misleading deepfake in the middle of the election had already labeled the post as a parody on X. Forcing them to use the word ‘parody’ on the actual video protects the public from being further misled as the video is shared across platforms.”
“It’s not clear why this conservative activist California sued. “This new disclosure law for election-related misinformation is no more stringent than laws already passed in other states, including Alabama,” Garden said. “We are proud that California has expanded the law to include misinformation about election workers for up to two months after the election — to prevent malicious actors from attempting to disrupt the democratic process.”
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California Governor Gavin Newsom had previously condemned such satirical election content generated by AI. (AP Photo/Steven Sain)
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Newsom has previously condemned such satirical election content generated by AI. In response to Harris’s altered election ad, which was reposted by Elon Musk, Newsom said in July“Manipulating sound in this type of ‘advertising’ should be illegal. I’ll be signing a bill in a few weeks to make sure of that.”
Fox Business’ Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
