California Governor Newsom Signs Legislation Prohibiting Political Deepfakes, Elon Musk Criticizes Newsom for Alleged Violation of Constitution
OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:37 PM – Friday, September 20, 2024
California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom has signed multiple bills banning AI-generated political deepfake photos and videos, catching the attention of Elon Musk, who asserted that Newsom is attempting to make “parody illegal.”
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The new legislation stems from Newsom (D-Calif.) vowing to ban digitally-altered election campaign material in July after Musk had reposted a manipulated advertisement mocking Vice President Kamala Harris.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), “A deepfake refers to a specific kind of synthetic media where a person in an image or video is swapped with another person’s likeness.”
“Manipulating a voice in an “ad” like this one should be illegal. I’ll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is,” Gov. Newsom stated in a post on X (Twitter), referencing the manipulated ad that Musk reposted.
“I think Mr. Musk has missed the punchline, parody is still alive and well in California but deepfakes and manipulation of elections?” Newsom continued. “That hurts democracy and the integrity of the system and trust and we believe in truth and trust and we believe this law is sound and will be upheld in court.”
Nevertheless, Musk clapped back at Newsom, mocking the California governor’s assertion.
“I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznuts, and he said parody is legal in America,” Musk jokingly responded.
Assembly Bill 2839, one of the three bills Newsom signed into law, makes it a crime to distribute “materially deceptive audio or visual media of a candidate” for up to 120 days before an election and it would go into effect immediately.
Assembly Bill 2655 would go into effect next year, and it requires online platforms to take down political deepfake material.
Lastly, Assembly Bill 2355 will require campaigns to publicly disclose the usage of any AI-generated or digitally-altered ad material.
Following the bills being signed into law, Musk revisited the now-viral Harris parody campaign ad, stating: “The governor of California just made this parody video illegal in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Would be a shame if it went viral.”
The parody Kamala Harris campaign ad Musk shared has since amassed over 75 million views on his social media platform, X.
Manipulated AI campaign ads have prompted numerous Democrat officials to spring into action, speaking out against what they refer to as the new “threat.”
“It is the ultimate double-edged sword: it holds great promise but also exceptional peril because it’s lowering the barrier to entry for all sorts of malicious actors,” stated Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “There will be changes in law, I’m confident, over time.”
Additionally, Christopher Kohls, the X user who created the Harris deepfake ad, is reportedly suing California over the new deepfake laws, to which Musk responded, “Awesome” in a post.
“They were important election integrity bills that are long overdue… The election’s happening, early voting is happening, these bills were urgent for me to get done,” Newsom stated about the new legislation, adding that he “could care less if it was Harris or Trump.”
“It was just wrong on every level,” Newsome continued.
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