(L-R) Timothy Head, executive director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition talks with Seth Dillon, CEO, of the Babylon Bee and Kyle Mann, editor and chief, at the annual “Road To Majority Policy Conference” held by the Faith & Freedom Coalition at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tenn., on June 18, 2022. Seth Herald/Getty Images
The Babylon Bee, a satirical online publication, is suing the state of New Mexico over a law that bans artificial intelligence-created misrepresentation of political figures and issues, including satire and parody, in the months leading up to an election.
In a
filed on Aug. 11, the Babylon Bee charged that the law criminalizes speech that is protected by the First Amendment.
“We’re used to getting pulled over by the joke police, but comedy isn’t a crime,” Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
“The First Amendment protects our right to create AI satire poking fun at political candidates,” Dillon said. “We’ll never stop fighting to defend that freedom.”
New Mexico’s law, passed in 2024, makes it illegal to post “materially deceptive media” generated with AI, within 90 days before an election, without a state-mandated warning label. The law specifically includes satire and parody, and covers flyers, social media posts, and memes, with violators liable for fines up to $20,000.
AI has become increasingly adept at creating media that is difficult to distinguish from actual photos and videos, prompting many officials to call for restrictions on AI-generated posts in order to shield the public from false information.
But New Mexico’s law also aligns with other efforts by government officials to control what they deem to be “misinformation.” This includes efforts by the Biden administration to pressure social media companies to suppress statements during the COVID-19 pandemic that conflicted with official narratives on topics like the source of the virus and vaccines, as well as the creation of a Disinformation Governance Board within the Department of Homeland Security in 2022.
Similarly, the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which also applies to American companies, contains provisions that compel tech companies to suppress what the act calls “disinformation.”
Attorneys representing the Babylon Bee say that laws like these often violate Americans’ First Amendment rights.
“When these laws are framed as broadly as they are, it really is state censorship of political speech, which is the highest rung of speech that our Constitution protects,” Logan Spena, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom who is representing the Babylon Bee, told The Epoch Times. “We want to make sure the government is not in the business of trying to decide what’s true and false in the matter of political debates.”
The lawsuit against New Mexico states that, while there are exceptions to the First Amendment, such as obscenity, incitement, defamation, and threats, “the government’s declaration that speech is false does not empower it to restrict that speech.”
“As [AI] gets more realistic, I think states are getting a little more concerned, but the problem is that they’re overreacting in ways that unconstitutionally restricts protected speech,” Spena said. As artificially generated images proliferate, people will become more discerning about what they see online, he said.
New Mexico officials did not respond to a request for comment as of press time. A statement provided to media outlets by a state Ethics Commission spokesperson said that “the Commission has never taken action to enforce the AI-disclaimer requirements in Section 1-19-26.4 of the Campaign Reporting Act, much less for political parody and satire. While the Babylon Bee has a First Amendment right to mock New Mexico, it does not have a right to extract attorneys’ fees from the State.”
