Babylon Bee gets California law banning political deepfakes struck down

A federal judge has blocked a California law banning political deepfakes after critics said it restricted free speech

The judge made the decision after the Babylon Bee, a conservative Christian satire website

and others filed a lawsuit arguing that the law violated free speech rights

In September of last year, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed two bills into law, Assembly Bill 2839 and AB 2655

Both laws aim to restrict the creation and use of deepfake content featuring political figures, especially during election periods, to prevent misinformation

U.S. District Judge John Mendez sided with the Babylon Bee and decided that the California laws violate the First Amendment

Judge Mendez ruled that California's AB 2839 unlawfully censors speech before any actual harm occurs

lacks precedent under the First Amendment, and could have been narrowly tailored to target only false speech causing real legal harm

Rather than targeting content that procures tangible harms or materially benefits a speaker AB 2839 attempts to stifle speech before it occurs or actually harms anyone as long as it is reasonably likely to do so and it allows almost anyone to act as a censorship czar

Mendez wrote. The Babylon Bee and the other plaintiffs in the case were represented by

Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization focused on religious freedom and free speech

Our job is hard enough when our jokes keep coming true, as if they were prophecies

The Babylon Bee's CEO, Seth Dillon, said in a statement, but it becomes significantly more difficult when self-serving politicians abuse their power

to try to control public discourse and clamp down on comedy. We're pleased the court recognized the First Amendment secures our right to tell jokes

even ones the government doesn't like. In July 2024, after Newsom saw a parody video of Vice President Kamala Harris and said it

should be illegal. The California legislature quickly passed those two bills aimed at restricting

such content. Newsom then signed those bills into law on September 17th, 2024. For Straight Arrow

News, I'm Lauren Keenan. If you want more on this story, download the Straight Arrow News app or visit SIN.com