Musk attacks Newsom, says California’s new anti-deepfake law makes ‘parody illegal’
Top line
Elon Musk attacked California Governor Gavin Newsom late Tuesday, shortly after the Democratic governor signed some of the country’s toughest laws cracking down on the use of AI-generated political deepfake images and videos.
California Governor Gavin Newsom presents anti-deepfake legislation on stage Salesforce Dreamforce … (+)
Key data
While speaking with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on stage at the company’s Dreamforce AI conference on Tuesday, Newsom signed three bills against deepfakes in political ads.
U.S. Assembly Bill 2839, which takes effect immediately, makes it illegal to distribute “materially misleading audio or video media of a candidate” 120 days before an election and, in some cases, 60 days afterward.
The law allows candidates to seek the removal of deepfake ads through a court order and also to sue the person who distributed them – but parodies and satire that involve disclosure are exempt.
U.S. Assembly Bill 2655, which will take effect next year, would require online platforms like X and Facebook to remove such political deepfakes, and U.S. Assembly Bill 2355 would require campaign companies to publicly disclose when they run ads with AI-generated or altered images.
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How did Elon Musk react?
In July, Newsom vowed to sign a bill to combat political deepfakes after Musk shared an altered campaign video of Vice President Kamala Harris. At the time, the billionaire mocked Newsom, saying “parody is legal in America.” After Newsom signed the bill on Tuesday, Musk attacked the California governor in a series of posts on his X platform. Musk re-shared the video, writing, “You won’t believe this, but Gavin Newsom just announced he signed a LAW based on this video that makes parody illegal.” Musk then called for “new leadership” in California and urged his followers to make the Harris deepfake video “viral.” The billionaire, who supports former President Donald Trump, then supported right-wing accounts attacking Harris, saying free speech would be “at risk” if the Democrat wins in November.
Key quote
“These were important election integrity bills that were long overdue… The election is happening, early voting is happening, I needed to get these bills done urgently,” Newsom told the audience at Dreamforce. The governor said he “didn’t care if Harris or Trump” were the target of deepfakes, adding, “It was just wrong on every level.”
More information
Elon Musk’s xAI unveils new Grok-2 model that lets users generate images of politicians and copyrighted brands (Forbes)
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