The Babylon Bee is back in court again, my friends, this time in sunny New Mexico:
Fox News reports:
A New Mexico law requiring disclaimers on certain AI-generated political content, including parody and satire, is being challenged in court by Christian satire news site The Babylon Bee.
HB 182, passed in 2024, amended New Mexico's Campaign Reporting Act to add disclosure requirements for political advertisements containing what the law defines as "materially deceptive media." The law mandates that relevant images, video or audio manipulated or created through artificial intelligence must display a prominent AI disclaimer identifying the content as created or manipulated by artificial intelligence.
The Bee filed the suit with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, arguing that the measure constitutes an illegal chilling of speech and also, per Fox, that it "destroys the intent of comedy" (a much worse crime IMHO).
The complaint specifically argues that the disclaimer rule "alters the content of the satire and parody The Bee wants to express by alerting the viewer to the satirical or parodical nature of the communication and thereby depriving the expression of its rhetorical force ... Put simply, HB 182 spoils the joke as it begins, each and every time."
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon told Fox News that the satire publication will go ahead with its jokes regardless of the law:
'The concern is real, but we don't censor ourselves,' Dillon told Fox News Digital. 'If a joke we want to tell is likely to violate the law, we'll tell it, anyway — both because we have a right to, and we refuse to do the tyrant's work for him. If penalties are imposed, we'll sue to defend our rights. In this case, we're suing preemptively to settle the matter before it escalates to that point.'
The suit targets the New Mexico Ethics Commission, which would enforce the law and impose fines on the Bee if they should publish a joke AI image without a useless disclaimer.
ADF attorney Jim Campbell said the suit is arguing "that the First Amendment ensures that the Babylon Bee and anyone else in New Mexico can continue to post political ads and political messages — including satire and parody, addressing some of the most important political questions facing the people of New Mexico."
A spokesperson for the ethics commission, meanwhile, said the lawsuit was "baseless," telling Fox that the commission had "never taken action to enforce the AI-disclaimer requirements" in the law, including against satire.
Sounds to me like they're a bit nervous!
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