California Court Halts Implementation of Law Criminalizing Political Satire

California Gov. Gavin Newsom in Los Angeles on Sep. 25, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

A California court has issued a preliminary injunction stopping the implementation of a law aimed at preventing the proliferation of altered election-related content, potentially including parody and satire content. The judge ruled that the measure hinders free speech rights.

The Oct. 2 ruling was in response to a lawsuit stemming from an artificial-intelligence (AI)-generated satire video posted by the plaintiff, Christopher Kohls, a social media influencer known by the screen name “Mr Reagan” who posts humorous political content featuring politicians.

On July 26, the plaintiff posted a video titled “Kamala Harris Campaign Ad PARODY” on his X account. The footage used AI-generated content to disparage Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.

Elon Musk shared the video on his X social media account, generating more than 100 million views. Subsequently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that manipulating voices in the way that Kohls has done should be illegal. The California Legislature eventually passed Assembly Bill (AB) 2839, which aimed to regulate “materially deceptive” election-related content.

The bill was signed on Sept. 17. On the same day, Kohls filed a lawsuit against California officials and sought a preliminary injunction against the law. On Oct. 2, Judge John A. Mendez from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California ruled in favor of the plaintiff.

The bill “would allow any political candidate, election official, the Secretary of State, and everyone who sees his AI-generated videos to sue him for damages and injunctive relief during an election period which runs 120 days before an election to 60 days after an election,” the judge noted in his order.

The plaintiff argued that AB 2839 violates the First and 14th Amendments, saying that it infringes “on his right to free speech and is unconstitutionally vague.”

The defendants claimed that AB 2839 seeks only to restrict false statements that fall outside the category of false speech protected by the First Amendment.

However, Mendez noted in his order that “even if AB 2839 were only targeted at knowing falsehoods that cause tangible harm, these falsehoods as well as other false statements are precisely the types of speech protected by the First Amendment.”

“Supreme Court precedent illuminates that while a well-founded fear of a digitally manipulated media landscape may be justified, this fear does not give legislators unbridled license to bulldoze over the longstanding tradition of critique, parody, and satire protected by the First Amendment,” the judge wrote.

The judge assessed that most provisions of AB 2839 served as a “blunt tool” that hinders humorous expression and would unconstitutionally restrict free speech and the exchange of ideas that are “so vital” to America’s democracy.

While the court admitted that California may have a legitimate interest in protecting election integrity via AB 2839, it noted that the First Amendment was designed to protect citizens from “encroachments of speech by State governments themselves.”

As such, Mendez granted Kohls’s request for a preliminary injunction, which prevented the enforcement of most of AB 2839’s provisions.

Threat to Free Speech

Kohls cited the court judgment in an Oct. 3 X post.

“Victory! Lawsuit against Newsom has been won,” he wrote, partly in all caps.

Musk also welcomed the court decision.

“Congratulations! Score one for the people’s right to free speech,” the billionaire wrote in reply to Kohls’s post.

Adam Schulman, senior attorney at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute (HLLI), which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Kohls, called the ruling a “powerful reaffirmation of free speech values in a world of new technology,” according to an Oct. 2 statement.

Supporters of the bill have argued that the measure is necessary to protect the integrity of the electoral process.

“In a few clicks, using current technology, bad actors now have the power to create a false image of a candidate accepting a bribe, a fake video of an elections official ‘caught on tape’ saying that voting machines are not secure, or a robocall of ‘Governor Newsom’ incorrectly telling millions of Californians their voting site has changed,” multiple groups, including labor union SEIU California, said in a legislative analysis.

The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute said in a Sept. 17 statement that bills such as AB 2839 use “undefined and vague statutory language,” because of which the state of California has broad discretion to determine what content would be “materially deceptive.”

“This creates a chilling effect on free speech,” it said.

The organization has also filed a lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s law prohibiting the AI-generated parody of politicians.

Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.