A few weeks ago I mentioned that California had passed a law banning "materially deceptive" campaign deepfakes created by AI. Today brings this comment:
On Sept 27 @nytimes accused @elonmusk of being “misleading” for criticizing a new California law to censor parody. “The laws have exceptions for parody” said the Times
Five days later a judge ruled the law unconstitutional. Why? Because it banned a video clearly labeled “PARODY” pic.twitter.com/w1oj52ZWs3
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) October 7, 2024
This claim has been all over the place, but it's demonstrably untrue. The judge did indeed rule the law unconstitutional, but did so for the simplest of reasons: it was too broad.
Under strict scrutiny, a state must use the “least restrictive means available for advancing [its] interest.” The First Amendment does not “permit speech-restrictive measures when the state may remedy the problem by implementing or enforcing laws that do not infringe on speech.”
....Ultimately, as Plaintiff’s motion points out, despite AB 2839’s attempts at a limited construction, the statute encompasses a broad range of election-related content that would be constitutionally protected even if false and cannot withstand First Amendment scrutiny.
The ruling was unrelated to parody except for one thing: the judge ruled that the law required too large a font for its labeling requirement.
For parody or satire videos, AB 2839 requires a disclaimer to air for the entire duration of a video in text that is no smaller than the largest font size used in the video.... AB 2839’s size requirements for the disclosure statement in this case and many other cases would take up an entire screen, which is not reasonable because it almost certainly “drowns out” the message a parody or satire video is trying to convey.
Nickel summary: the judge ruled that the First Amendment allows even knowing falsehoods ("it is perilous to permit the state to be the arbiter of truth”). It doesn't matter if they're digital ("YouTube videos, Facebook posts, and X tweets are the newspaper advertisements and political cartoons of today, and the First Amendment protects an individual’s right to speak regardless of the new medium these critiques may take."). Nor does it matter if these lies harm the electoral prospects of a candidate ("When political speech and electoral politics are at issue, the First Amendment has almost unequivocally dictated that Courts allow speech to flourish rather than uphold the State’s attempt to suffocate it."). What's more, there are already laws on the books to protect individuals from defamatory falsehoods ("Other statutory causes of action such as privacy torts, copyright infringement, or defamation already provide recourse to public figures or private individuals whose reputations may be afflicted by artificially altered depictions peddled by satirists or opportunists on the internet.").
California's law did not ban parody. It specifically exempted parody, as the judge recognized. He ruled that the labeling requirements were a little too onerous, but that's it.
nytimes:
The super PAC founded by Mr. Musk, the billionaire head of Tesla and SpaceX, is circulating a petition in which voters pledge their support for the First and Second Amendments. And he is offering $47 for each voter recruited to sign it.
The goal is “to get 1 million registered voters in swing states to sign in support of the Constitution, especially freedom of speech and the right to bear arms,” the petition says. If recruiters managed to find 1 million people to sign the petition, Mr. Musk would be on the hook for a staggering $47 million.
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musk is a complete fucking idiot if he doesn't see how this plays out
if you're a democrat in one of these states, go sign the petition, get your $47 from elon musk, then donate it to the harris campaign
duh.
Not up on the details -- how is it that one actually RECEIVES said $47? Sign now be paid later? I guess I'd do it for cash upon signature...
apparently it's paid to people who make referrals, and they want your contact info
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Federal law makes it is a crime to pay someone to vote or to accept payment for registering to vote or for voting. It is not illegal to pay money to voters to sign a petition or to the people persuading them to sign.
Brendan Fischer, a campaign-finance lawyer who has been critical of other work at Mr. Musk’s super PAC, said the effort did not appear to legally problematic.
“The fact that they are only paying the referrer rather than the signatory further insulates the PAC from any accusations that they are buying votes,” he said. “Ultimately, what America PAC is doing here is spending money for voter data, which PACs and campaigns do all the time.”
kinda funny, but i'm a registered republican; i did it years ago because the republicans would send out mailers allowing you to register for absentee voting
since most of that stuff is online now it doesn't really matter, but i just stay on their rolls so they waste their money mailing me their propaganda
This claim has been all over the place, but it's demonstrably untrue.
Thank you for correcting ... well, some part of The Record, but of course what matters to the people who are spreading it -- who overlap closely or even are effectively identical with today's Republicans -- is that it "has been all over the place." That it is "demonstrably untrue" does NOT MATTER AT ALL to them, nor to the people whom they wish to hear it.
They want to spread and hear things that confirm their beliefs -- specifically their grievances and their bigotries -- and they want to get ANGRY about them. It's exciting, and gives them a sense of belonging and of purpose. The facts of the matter are pretty much irrelevant; what matters are the feelings and the conformance to the Tribe's professed beliefs.
(And it's worth noting that in almost the same breath as they decry GUMMINT CENSORSHIP they will also insist that PEOPLE SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO SAY THOSE THINGS, the difference being that the former are things they agree with and the latter not.)
No wonder they defend parody. Their victim-hood IS a parody, of civil liberties and everything else they oppose. Just wait till they have a second Trump turn in office and see whose liberty they suppress.
Meanwhile:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is threatening TV stations that air ads in support of an abortion rights ballot initiative with criminal penalties, including jail time.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/10/florida-amendment-4-ron-desantis-administration-prosecute-media-airing-pro-choice-ads.html
So we need to nail the fucker to the wall. A principled defense of First Amendment rights in general makes that particular argument easier.
Dude. The Judge found that the Plaintiff was likely to prevail on three grounds: that AB 2839 was facially invalid; that AB 2389 unconstitutionally compelled speech, and a state constitutional challenge. Any of these grounds would have sufficed.
The standard for finding a statute facially invalid is that "the law’s unconstitutional applications substantially outweigh its constitutional ones." That is what the court found here.
The court also noted that this law was "an archetypal content-based regulation that our constitution considers dubious and subject to strict scrutiny." The Court implies that California legislators have attempted to "bulldoze over the longstanding tradition of critique, parody, and satire protected by the First Amendment."
A few weeks ago you opined "Campaign deepfakes have been illegal in California for four years. They're still illegal, and the new law has only slightly sharper teeth. What am I missing here?"
Well. You appear to have missed that this law likely amounts to an unconstitutional restriction on speech. And presumably the prior one likely amounts to an unconstitutional restriction as well (I can't find an example of it having been challenged).
And before the Blue MAGA jackasses start braying: yes - the Republicans are bad and opportunistic about free speech. But because free speech is a principle we care about for its own sake (and not merely when tactically convenient), we should support free speech -- even when its proponents are Republicans.
impossible to take people who write stuff like this - "Blue MAGA " - seriously.
impossible
Then you are part of the problem, buttercup.
And before you put a paragraph completely showing you're disingenuous, mr 'blue maga'...
🤢
what happened to Michael Shellenberger? sheesh. he is on the Logan glide path.
I dunno, he's got me blocked, thankfully.
Fake or altered images, audio recordings and videos should be be considered prima facie defamatory if not labeled as altered or obviously fake, if the alterations to the content make it falsely appear the defamed parties said or did something, or were located with someone or at a place, which could reasonably be perceived as negative.
Social media companies should lose their Section 230 protections if they do not remove defamatory content promptly AND notify everyone who received it on three occasions. In order to prevent themselves from having to spam our feeds with yet another “Sorry, we fed you yet another lie yesterday” message, they’d largely police themselves.
Agree with the first paragraph, except I would remove the "preceived as negative". Any time you mislead the public about some individual, it needs to be labeled or absolutely clearly fake.
The second one needs more thinking, but it is in the right direction.