By: Jason Walsh September 30, 2024
https://www.dailyfetched.com/babylon-bee-sues-california-over-satire-crackdown/
Conservative satire site, The Babylon Bee, has filed a lawsuit against the state of California after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of “deep fake ” laws targeting outlets publishing parody.”
According to a report from The Daily Wire, the complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and notes that Newsom tweeted that a parody video of 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.
According to the complaint, one of California’s new laws will require social media platforms to notify the state with “reports about user posts with ‘materially deceptive content’ and then remove or label them.”
Newsom argued that the state’s laws focus on AI-generated content that could “undermine the public’s trust through disinformation.”
However, the new law also requires satire and parody content to be clearly labeled or removed completely.
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon said during a news podcast “Morning Wire” that the law targets satirists and their writers “by requiring them to put disclaimers to let you know that this is a 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,” Dillon said.
“So we’re fighting back in every way that we can against laws that clamp down on speech.”
California attorney Kelly Chang Rickert joined the lawsuit against California, which was filed with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom. Its president, Kristen Waggoner, warned that the new law “targets core political speech.”
“These laws were passed by politicians to protect politicians from speech that they don’t like,” Waggoner said.
The lawsuit is filed against the following:
California Attorney General Rob Bonta
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón
Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Soto
The Babylon Bee became hugley popular after it shifted from writing about Christian topics to politics,
The new law is also challenged by a conservative social media user, @MrReaganUSA, who also filed a lawsuit against the leftist state with The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute,
The Institute argues that California is “chill[ing] free speech, particularly for political commentators like Mr. Reagan, who use satire to critique public figures and rely on social media viewership for their livelihood.”
The complaint 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.”
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