X User Sues to Block California’s New Anti-Deepfakes Law Over AI-Altered Kamala Harris Video
A user on X is trying to stop California’s new anti-deepfakes law because they shared a video of Kamala Harris that had been changed by AI and went viral. They say the law violates their right to free speech.
Just one day after California Gov. Gavin Newsom passed new laws against political deepfakes, a user on X made a campaign video mocking Kamala Harris that got a lot of attention after Elon Musk shared it. This person is now suing to stop those laws.
Chris Kohls, who is suing, told the Federal Court for the Eastern District of California in writing that the new laws are an obvious abuse of state power because they force private social media companies to censor private citizens’ speech by removing election-related AI-generated material.
Kohls got a lot of attention in July when she posted a campaign video with AI-made audio clips that sound like Harris’ voice and call her the “ultimate diversity hire” and a “deep state puppet.”
Elon Musk shared Kohls’ video in an X post that has more than 135 million views, which made it famous. The lawsuit says the plaintiff has a “absolute Constitutional right to lampoon politicians he believes should not be elected,” pointing out that the voiceover in the video “sounds strikingly similar” to Harris’ and “exaggerates real political talking points.” Kohls hopes this will hurt Sen. Harris’s chances of winning in November.
The video was called a “Campaign Ad PARODY” in Kohls’ original post. This type of fake news is not covered by California’s political deepfakes law as long as the truth is told.
On the other hand, The case claims that this won’t protect the plaintiff’s video since the law requires the spoof label to be written in the same font size as the video’s other text. In this case, the lawsuit says that the video will fill up almost the whole screen with this text.
Musk’s Involvement and Criticism of Newsom’s Law
Following Musk’s support of Kohls’ video in July, Newsom promised to sign a bill to stop political deepfakes. When asked what he thought, Musk made fun of Newsom and said, “Parody is legal in America.” During his speech at Salesforce’s “Dreamforce” AI conference on Tuesday, Newsom signed Assembly Bills 2839, 2655, and 2355. Spreading “materially deceptive audio or visual media of a candidate” is against the law as of right now, thanks to AB 2839. This includes up to 60 days after an election and 120 days before elections. Lawmakers can sue the person who spread deepfake ads and ask a court to take down any ads that are found to be false.
As long as they have a disclaimer, parody and humour are not banned. As of next year, the other two bills will force platforms like X and Facebook to remove these kinds of political deepfakes and require campaigns to tell the public if they run ads with images that were created or changed by AI.
Newsom signed the bill on Tuesday, and Musk has been attacking him ever since. Because of this video, Musk shared it again on X and wrote, “You’re not going to believe this, but Gavin Newsom just announced that he signed a LAW to make parody illegal.”
To keep his attacks on Newsom, California, and Democrats going on Wednesday, Musk said that if Harris wins in November, free speech will be limited across the country. It was made by Babylon Bee and was meant to hurt Newsom. Musk also backed up the ad.
