Elon Musk Accuses Gavin Newsom Of Making Parody Videos “Illegal” With New Law
Elon Musk accused California Governor Gavin Newsom of making parody videos “illegal” in the state of California. The tech entrepreneur took issue with Newsom’s three bills that crack down on the use of AI to create images and videos.
In July, Newsom made a vow to make the manipulation of election content via Artificial Intelligence (AI) illegal. The public announcement came after Musk shared a satirical advertisement using Vice President Kamala Harris’ voice.
Newsom’s law, which is set to take place immediately, makes it illegal to create and publish deep fakes — including parody videos — related to the election 120 days before Election Day and 60 days after, according to DailyMail.
The law also allows courts to halt the distribution of deep fakes and impose civil penalties on the creator.
“I just signed a bill to make it illegal in the state of California,” Newsom said, referring to AI deep fakes. “You can no longer knowingly distribute an ad or other election communications that contain materially deceptive content — including deep fakes.”
“Safeguarding the integrity of elections is essential to democracy, and it’s critical that we ensure AI is not deployed to undermine the public’s trust through disinformation — especially in today’s fought political climate,” Newsom said in a separate statement.
Musk took to his social media platform X to shoot back at Newsom for the laws.
“You’re not gonna believe this, but [Gavin Newsom] just announced that he signed a LAW to make parody illegal,” Musk posted.
Newsom’s new laws come as Congress unveiled federal legislation aimed at stopping election deep fakes. The proposed bill would give the Federal Election Commission (FEC) the power to regulate the use of AI in elections in the same way the FEC regulates other political misrepresentations, per DailyMail.
The FEC has engaged in similar regulations after outlawing AI-generated robocalls in February.
