California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsome has signed two new bills that aim to protect fake information from getting out to the public in advance of elections.
The bills, signed on Tuesday, ban “deepfake,” which are images or videos that have been digitally manipulated, as well as all digital disinformation.
Many people have said that California’s Legislature passed these bills, and Newsom signed them, in direct response to messages that entrepreneur Elon Musk posted on the X social media platform that he owns.
Musk shared what was a deepfake parody that showed Vice President Kamala Harris saying things she didn’t actually say in a voiceover. The voice that was used sounded a lot like her.
The two new bills that California passed are related to each other.
The first one requires that all “large online platforms … block the posting of materially deceptive content related to elections in California, during specified periods before and after an election.”
In addition, the law bans “materially deceptive content,” which it defines as any “audio or visual media that is digitally created or modified, and that includes, but is not limited to, deepfakes.”
The second bill that Newsom signed specifically targets deepfake content that shows “[a] candidate for any federal, state or local elected office in California portrayed as doing or saying something that the candidate did not do or say if the content is reasonably likely to harm the reputation or electoral prospects of a candidate.”
Exceptions exist under the law for any news reporting, parody and/or satire, as long as it has a disclaimer that accompanies it.
It didn’t take very long for challenges to this law to be filed. Politico reported on Wednesday that the person who created the video about Harris that Musk referenced has already sued the state of California.
The person, Christopher Kohls — who has the username Mr Regan on the social media platform X — alleges that the new laws violate both the 14th and First Amendments to the Constitution.
In his lawsuit, Kohls argues that political satire is a “fundamental First Amendment Right.”
Through the federal lawsuit that he filed on Tuesday, Kohls seeks a permanent injunction against both of California’s new laws.
One of the laws, the Deepfake Deception Act, already includes exceptions for content that clearly includes labels that it’s a parody.
Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Newsome, referenced that when he responded to Kohls’ lawsuit in a recent statement. He said:
“Requiring them to use the word ‘parody’ on the actual video avoids further misleading the public as the video is shared across the platform. It’s unclear why this conservative activist is suing California. This new disclosure law for election misinformation isn’t any more onerous than laws already passed in other states, including Alabama.”
It’s not certain at this point how well Kohls’ lawsuit will fare in court, but it might only be the first challenge to the liberal governor’s new bills.
