The Patriot Post® · Not Parody: Babylon Bee v. California
We seem to have reached peak insanity in our country these last few years, so it should come as no surprise that the natural progression of things would require taking legal action to secure the right to tell a joke.
That’s the situation that the presidents of parody over at The Babylon Bee are currently facing. They are now enmeshed in a battle for the ability to put out the type of content that they have become known for: funny content. Content that pokes fun at the woke and capitalizes on the nonstop stream of lunacy the Left provides on a near-daily basis.
The legal battle comes in response to two recent bills that were signed into law by California Governor Gavin Newsom after he vowed to ban parody political ads on social media in the Golden State. Newsom promised to squelch such speech after Elon Musk retweeted a parody ad of Kamala Harris in which an AI-generated version of her voice was used to describe her failings as vice president and highlight the severe cognitive decline of Joe Biden.
Newsom is deeply concerned about our ability to discern fact from farce and therefore feels the need to step in and protect us from having to exert the necessary brain power.
The new laws are meant to target the distribution of “deepfake” material while also forcing social media platforms to report users who break the rules. As The Washington Times reports, “One law forbids posting or sharing online ‘deceptive’ content that harms a candidate’s ‘electoral prospects’ ahead of an election, while another prods social media companies to police their platforms for anything that would run afoul of the new standard.”
Another new regulation for satirists would require a disclaimer at the beginning of their writings, letting readers know that what they are about to view is just a joke. Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon rightly contends that such a clause “completely stifles and kills the joke.”
Obviously, these new standards would hinder the Bee’s humorists by penalizing them if they don’t comply and limiting their reach if social media companies cower instead of standing strong.
The California legislature argues the new measures rein in AI before it becomes a bigger tool of deception. The legislature collectively asserts, “In a few clicks, using current technology, bad actors now have the power to create a false image of a candidate accepting a bribe, or a fake video of an elections official ‘caught on tape’ saying that voting machines are not secure, or generate an artificial robocall in the governor’s voice telling millions of Californians their voting site has changed.”
However, the president of Alliance Defending Freedom, Kristen Waggoner, accurately pointed out the direct violation of the First Amendment. These tactics are meant to “target core political speech,” she said, adding that the laws “were passed by politicians to protect politicians from speech that they don’t like.”
Many of today’s far-left politicians repeatedly insist that any effort to censor speech is for the sole purpose of curbing things like “hate speech” and “misinformation.” But isn’t it obvious that they feel threatened by the likes of The Babylon Bee? They are well aware that this specific type of content breaches political barriers, crosses party lines, and encourages people to consider the truth of the messaging — all this, of course, after the folks have finished laughing.
In the lawsuit, the Bee explained, “As with satire and parody more generally, the Bee intends to and desires to have these posts expose bad ideas, cause viewers to reflect on the consequences of those ideas, and prompt viewers to take appropriate action to remedy the consequences of those ideas.”
For example, before the lawsuit, the Bee first responded to Newsom in a very Bee way:
As the Bee’s Kyle Mann might humorously explain the joke, it’s funny because Newsom would never be that honest.
Reasonable people appreciate the value of being exposed to different types of content and support the delivery of important messages (especially political) in various ways. But exposing bad ideas and motivating people to resist those ideas threaten the entire leftist agenda. The last thing they want is for us to be inspired to do anything but comply with their government decrees, and they’d prefer it if we didn’t question them or laugh at their expense.
If only the Left would stop providing so much fodder for The Babylon Bee. If only.
Update: From Just the News, “A federal judge on Wednesday granted a preliminary injunction against a California law that banned deepfakes, saying parody videos are protected under the First Amendment.”