CA Deepfake Laws miss the brand, amount to censorship

From And WaltersCalmness

This comment was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

A few weeks ago, a video appeared on YouTube, thought to be a verbal clash between Senator Josh Holes, a Republican of Missouri, and governor Gavin Newpom during the hearing of Congress.

The video claims that Hooley was cleaning the Newsom clock in his debate in the case that Newsom has brought. The problem is that it was false, created with video fragments of both politicians and aloud, describing what it seemed.

The video, which has since disappeared from YouTube, is a pretty rude example of how technology can be manipulated to portray seemingly real events.

More complicated examples of artificial intelligence known as Deepfakes can literally Put words in the mouth of political figures Or even create real faces at first glance.

Last year, Christopher Cols, named Mr Reagan on social media, published a video in which Kamala Harris at first glance admitted that she was the “final diversity” when Joe Biden chose her as her vice president vice president.

Kolls said it was a parody but Elon Musk posted it on its social media platform xExtract Newsom and vow to ban such material. It was one of many clashes with Musk, the billionaire’s electric car and a missile tycoon after becoming an ally of Donald Trump.

Within weeks, Newsom has signed two bills aimed at regulating or banning AI -generated political videos. Kohl, later to other content creators, brought a caseclaiming to violate freedom of expression.

This week John Mendes, Federal Judge in Sacramento, struck one of the measures., Assembly Bill 2655assembly Mark BermanPalo Alto Democrat. He ruled that the Federal Law on Communication Outings defends X and other responsibility sites for materials published by third parties, such as KOHL or Musk.

AB 2655 would ban websites from publishing fraudulent political materials during the campaign seasons. “They have nothing to do with these videos that the state objected to,” Mendes said.

More specially, Mendes indicated that he would reject the second measure, Assembly Bill 2839assembly Gail Pellerin, Democrat from Santa Cruz. This would forbid everyone from “deliberately spreading advertising or other election communication … which contains a certain material deceptive content.”

“I think the Statute is just failing miserable in achieving what he wants to do,” Mendes said, adding “He has become a Censorship Law and there is no way to survive.”

As the political polarization of the country deepens, voters are becoming more and more likely to believe that those on the other side of the division are evil, corrupt and powerful hungry. In the meantime, artificial intelligence makes political Deepfakes increasingly sophisticated and capable of misleading the gullible voters to believe in their lies.

Exaggeration, selective facts and outspoken lies have always been obvious in political campaigns, but historically, they are conducted in check, at least partly, by newspapers and other political media.

Unfortunately, the main media came across economically difficult times and became less capable of police political discourse. Meanwhile, X, YouTube, Podcasts and other digital media broke out as alternative sources, but they tend to manage polarization rather than counteract it.

The bills that democratic legislators and a democratic governor adopted last year were obviously focused on the mutilation of the media on the other side of the ideological division, but as Judge Mendes ruled, violated freedom of speech.

Censorship cannot be the answer. The approach that Newsom is taking and legislators is a slippery slope that will invite revenge from their political rivals, thus deepening the transparent political division.

However, this is a real danger. The unsettled use of the AI-moving Deepfakes in political campaigns is an obvious danger, but this also makes any effort to ban freedom of expression, however unpleasant.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.