Country's Strictest Ban On Election Deepfakes Struck By Judge (politico.com) 26
A federal judge struck down California's strict anti-deepfake election law, citing Section 230 protections rather than First Amendment concerns. Politico reports: [Judge John Mendez] also said he intended to overrule a second law, which would require labels on digitally altered campaign materials and ads, for violating the First Amendment. [...] The first law would have blocked online platforms from hosting deceptive, AI-generated content related to an election in the run-up to the vote. It came amid heightened concerns about the rapid advancement and accessibility of artificial intelligence, allowing everyday users to quickly create more realistic images and videos, and the potential political impacts. But opponents of the measures ... also argued the restrictions could infringe upon freedom of expression.
The original challenge was filed by the creator of the video, Christopher Kohls, on First Amendment grounds, with X later joining the case after [Elon Musk] said the measures were "designed to make computer-generated parody illegal." The satirical right-wing news website the Babylon Bee and conservative social media site Rumble also joined the suit. Mendez said the first law, penned by Democratic state Assemblymember Marc Berman, conflicted with the oft-cited Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability for what third parties post on their sites. "They don't have anything to do with these videos that the state is objecting to," Mendez said of sites like X that host deepfakes.
But the judge did not address the First Amendment claims made by Kohls, saying it was not necessary in order to strike down the law on Section 230 grounds. "I'm simply not reaching that issue," Mendez told the plaintiffs' attorneys. [...] "I think the statute just fails miserably in accomplishing what it would like to do," Mendez said, adding he would write an official opinion on that law in the coming weeks. Laws restricting speech have to pass a strict test, including whether there are less restrictive ways of accomplishing the state's goals. Mendez questioned whether approaches that were less likely to chill free speech would be better. "It's become a censorship law and there is no way that is going to survive," Mendez added.
The original challenge was filed by the creator of the video, Christopher Kohls, on First Amendment grounds, with X later joining the case after [Elon Musk] said the measures were "designed to make computer-generated parody illegal." The satirical right-wing news website the Babylon Bee and conservative social media site Rumble also joined the suit. Mendez said the first law, penned by Democratic state Assemblymember Marc Berman, conflicted with the oft-cited Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability for what third parties post on their sites. "They don't have anything to do with these videos that the state is objecting to," Mendez said of sites like X that host deepfakes.
But the judge did not address the First Amendment claims made by Kohls, saying it was not necessary in order to strike down the law on Section 230 grounds. "I'm simply not reaching that issue," Mendez told the plaintiffs' attorneys. [...] "I think the statute just fails miserably in accomplishing what it would like to do," Mendez said, adding he would write an official opinion on that law in the coming weeks. Laws restricting speech have to pass a strict test, including whether there are less restrictive ways of accomplishing the state's goals. Mendez questioned whether approaches that were less likely to chill free speech would be better. "It's become a censorship law and there is no way that is going to survive," Mendez added.
free speech for all except for porn (Score:4, Informative)
"It's become a censorship law and there is no way that is going to survive," Mendez added.
What's this judge's opinion on all the porn censorship laws enacted? Why isn't anyone putting those cases in front of him? republicans do it with that partisan, corrupt texas judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk.
Why not just make a law that makes it necessary to be 18 or older to view deepfake bullshit?
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Because California is not a puritan anti porn state, and he is a Californian judge.
Re: free speech for all except for porn (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not exactly true, California places all kinds of restrictions on porn. For example, it's illegal to film bareback porn here.
But the collie fucker has a point. I don't know that age restrictions count as censorship, though in general I'm opposed to them on privacy grounds. While I don't agree with his stance on collie porn, I will defend his right to make his stance known.
Re: free speech for all except for porn (Score:2)
Wrong. You can film bareback porn in CA. Just not in LA county. There have been those that interpret Cal/OSHA regulations to require condom use, it hasn't been settled in court yet.
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I wonder why one would interpret Cal OSHA to require condom use, when there are other tools available, some arguably more reliable than condoms, such as PrEP, DoxyPEP, TasP, oral contraceptives, etc.
Re: free speech for all except for porn (Score:2)
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As someone who actually contracted HIV while using such PPE decades ago, I disagree. I wish PreP had existed back then.
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I had to lookup collie. Not sure how dogs became part of the conversation.
I think you have to distinguish acts that are illegal from publishing content depicting those acts, though.
I would say age restrictions count as censorship. Making AI deepfakes legal only for those 100 years and older would be censorship, for example.
The bareback porn restriction is not California wide. And also is really non sensical
Re: free speech for all except for porn (Score:2)
I had to lookup collie. Not sure how dogs became part of the conversation.
The OP. It's in his name.
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Thanks. Totally missed that. The formatting on slashdot has been messed up on FF for Android for weeks.
Font sizes completely messed up. It's happened before but didn't stay broken for that long.
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The OP. It's in his name.
It's interesting that you jumped straight to him fucking dogs though, rather than him merely owning both dogs and a saxophone...
I had always presumed it was a play on words, rather than an admission of bestiality.
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The joke I was looking for was a link to a deep fake porn video featuring this judge.
Oh wait. Make that an election campaign-related deep fake video featuring this judge. With a side order of kiddie porn?
The First Amendment needs a page-one rewrite. We are stupid animals. We act and speak without thinking. Many ways of fast thinking that are stupid, and now we have the technology to "flood the zone" with BS and basically eliminate any slow thinking (based on true stuff) that works better.
And there she goes.
Looks like the masters have spoken... (Score:1)
Always amazing how laws looking to protect people from campaign abuse are always killed.
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It does seem odd... While I think there should be exceptions for satire, I support the idea of not allowing deep fakes for political ads. Lets hear the candidates in their own images and voices.
Judge is a fool (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not a free speech issue, it is a slander issue. The entire point of deepfake is to make people think something was said or done that did not happen. By definition it is an attempt to slander, not parody.
The law lets you say anything you want as long as YOU are saying it. It prevents you from making a claim that someone else said or did something they did not do.
Parody is still legal, you just can't do it so well that people think it is NOT a parody.
Nothing stops anyone from making a puppet or cartoon deep fake. Or cubist. Or a thousand other ways to do a deep fake for non-slander purposes
Just look at South Park. They do a great parody of Trump, but no one thinks they are actually viewing Trump in a homosexual relationship with Satan.
We all know the real tape will never be seen.
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This is not a free speech issue, it is a slander issue. The entire point of deepfake is to make people think something was said or done that did not happen. By definition it is an attempt to slander, not parody.
Slander seems like a good starting point for the concept. Allow me to agree, and add that ...
At some point we're going to have to deal with the fact that the constitution was not written for our current level of technology. We're going to have to make some decisions about whether we care more about pretending it's the late 1700's or living in a functional democracy.
If we decide on the latter, then yes, people do need to be able to express themselves freely, otherwise it's not a democracy. We also need to b
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AI does not have free speech. It has no human rights and it should not.
If you use the tool then it's you guiding it, the question is when is it a machine driving and not the human using it as a tool?? Soon you'll be able to instruct an agent to wage a campaign on it's own more like an employee and then it's not a tool, it's an AI even if it's not really intelligent it still can generate stuff on it's own without total guidance like a tool requires.
AI agents can't get the free speech rights of their owners!
designed to make computer-generated parody illegal (Score:2)
And, all these robots with their foreign parts are taking jobs from our honest Ame
S230 protects the platform holder (Score:2)
The problem is as a matter of practicality there's too much illegal content to be taken down that way bit by bit.
And I am not personally willing to give up s230 in order to get at deepfakes by holding platform holders legally liable for hosting them. Section 230 along with net neutrality are the two pillars that make a free internet work in
Another idiot who doesn't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
which would require labels on digitally altered campaign materials and ads, for violating the First Amendment.
It does no such thing. It is not prohibiting speech in any manner. The only thing it does is to notify the viewer the ads were digitally altered. The message is still there for everyone to see.
This is no different than requiring a notice on certain junk food to say, "Not actual size" for the product inside the package. No one would consider this a violation of the First Amendment, and neither is this law.
Diploma mills are getting out of hand.
Warning label: "Deepfake porn: Not actual size" (Score:2)
Sounds about right...
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Argumentative BS. This is often a disingenuous argument or done by a slower person who needs to some more thinking. THINK more before you speak, chas.
We also require judges because of variations of interpretations that can not be avoided but also waste a great deal of their time on exploitative juvenile word games that lack common sense -- which for an undeveloped teenage brain still learning reason and testing boundaries is normal (and annoying, often tedious) but for adults it should be shameful behavior
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It'd be a damn shame... (Score:2)
If scores of deep-fakes of the judge flooded it the Internet.