According to Bloomberg, social media company X has filed a lawsuit to block California’s AB 2655 law, which requires major online platforms to remove or label artificially-generated deepfakes related to elections.
X claims the law, also known as the Defending Democracy from Deepfake Act of 2024, would lead to widespread censorship of political speech. “There is a long history of the strongest First Amendment protections for speech critical of public officials and candidates for public office, including tolerance for potentially false speech made in the context of such criticism,” the complaint filed late Thursday in Sacramento federal court said.
AB 2655 imposes other requirements on platforms that X finds burdensome, including creating channels for reporting political deepfakes and a mechanism for candidates and elected officials to seek injunctive relief if the platform fails to comply with the law.