(The Center Square) – California Governor Gavin Newsom said he would soon be signing a bill to regulate artificial-intelligence-generated content after Elon Musk shared a mock-up political advertisement voiced by AI imitating Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Manipulating a voice in an ‘ad’ like this one should be illegal,” said Newsom on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I’ll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is.”
Musk replied, “I checked … and … parody is legal in America.”
While Newsom’s office would not specify which bill he is focusing on, his spokesperson did mention that he would be making use of an existing bill to achieve his vision for AI speech regulation.
“We’re working with the Legislature to ensure this issue is addressed in a bill already going through the legislative process,” said Newsom’s office in a statement to The Center Square.
AB 2655, called the “Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act of 2024,” would require internet platforms to “block the posting of materially deceptive content related to elections, during specified periods before and after an election” and “label certain additional content inauthentic, fake, or false during specified periods before and after an election.” The bill would also “authorize candidates for elected office, elected officials, elections officials, the Attorney General, and a district attorney or city attorney to seek injunctive relief against a large online platform for noncompliance.” Notably the bill would exempt “content that is satire or parody” and allow any regular news publication to share such content so long as it is labeled with a disclosure.
AB 2839 would “would prohibit a person, committee, or other entity from knowingly distributing an advertisement or other election communication, as defined, that contains certain materially deceptive content, as defined, with malice,” in the 120 days before and 60 days after an election. Recipients, candidates, and election officials would be able to “file a civil action to enjoin the distribution of the media and to seek damages against the person, committee, or other entity that distributed it.” Exceptions would exist for traditional news media if disclaimers are used, or for satire or parody.
Neither bill has passed the legislature but could soon do so with the governor’s support. It’s unclear how or if regulations on parody or satire for elections related materials would be inserted in the bills and would interact with the First Amendment, and the extent to which the rules would apply to worldwide internet content that can be seen by Californians.
