The Associated Press wrote about HLLI’s suit on behalf of Christopher Kohls, the person behind the “Mr Reagan,” YouTube and X accounts. Kohls challenges the constitutionality of two bills that Gov. Gavin Newsom contends makes his parody content illegal.
“It’s unclear why this conservative activist is suing California,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon said in a statement. “This new disclosure law for election misinformation isn’t any more onerous than laws already passed in other states, including Alabama.”
Theodore Frank, an attorney representing the complainant, said the California laws are too far reaching and are designed to “force social media companies to censor and harass people.”
“I’m not familiar with the Alabama law. On the other hand, the governor of Alabama had hasn’t threatened our client the way the governor of California did,” he told The Associated Press.
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After Kohls’ video was posted on X, Newsom replied with his own post on the site: “Manipulating a voice in an ‘ad’ like this one should be illegal. I’ll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is,” he wrote.
But critics such as free speech advocates and Musk called the new California law unconstitutional and an infringement on the First Amendment. Hours after they were signed into law, Musk on Tuesday night elevated a post on X sharing an AI-generated video featuring altered audios of Harris.
“The governor of California just made this parody video illegal in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Would be a shame if it went viral,” Musk wrote of the AI-generated video, which has a caption identifying the video as a parody.
Read the entire piece at the Associated Press. It can also be read on sites that syndicate AP content, like the Minnesota Star-Tribune.