Judge blocks California’s new AI law in case over Kamala Harris deepfake; TechCrunch, October 2, 2024

Maxwell Zeff, Tech Crunch ; Judge blocks California’s new AI law in case over Kamala Harris deepfake

"A federal judge blocked one of California’s new AI laws on Wednesday, less than two weeks after it was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. Shortly after signing AB 2839, Newsom suggested it could be used to force Elon Musk to take down an AI deepfake of Vice President Kamala Harris he had reposted (sparking a petty online battle between the two). However, a California judge just ruled the state can’t force people to take down election deepfakes – not yet, at least.

AB 2839 targets the distributors of AI deepfakes on social media, specifically if their post resembles a political candidate and the poster knows it’s a fake that may confuse voters. The law is unique because it does not go after the platforms on which AI deepfakes appear, but rather those who spread them. AB 2839 empowers California judges to order the posters of AI deepfakes to take them down or potentially face monetary penalties.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the original poster of that AI deepfake – an X user named Christopher Kohls – filed a lawsuit to block California’s new law as unconstitutional just a day after it was signed. Kohls’ lawyer wrote in a complaint that the deepfake of Kamala Harris is satire that should be protected by the First Amendment.

On Wednesday, United States district judge John Mendez sided with Kohls. Mendez ordered a preliminary injunction to temporarily block California’s attorney general from enforcing the new law against Kohls or anyone else, with the exception of audio messages that fall under AB 2839.

Read for yourself what Judge Mendez said in his decision:..

It’s nevertheless a big win for Elon Musk’s camp of free speech posters on X. In the days following Newsom signing AB 2839 into law, Musk and his usual allies posted a series of AI deepfakes that tested California’s new law."

Prominent journal editor fired for endorsing satirical article about Israel-Hamas conflict; Science, October 24, 2023

SCIENCE NEWS STAFF, Science; Prominent journal editor fired for endorsing satirical article about Israel-Hamas conflict

"Michael Eisen, editor-in-chief of the prominent open access journal eLife and a longtime critic of traditional journals, says he is losing that job for publicly endorsing a satirical article that criticized people dying in Gaza for not condemning the recent attacks on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas...

Eisen has previously been a frequent, feisty participant in debates about scientific publishing, doggedly supporting the development of free access to journal articles. In 2003, he co-founded the Public Library of Science (PLOS), whose journal PLOS ONE grew to become one of the largest open-access journals. Authors pay a fee so that their articles in PLOS journals are free to read when published. Eisen has criticized the paywalls still in place at many subscription journals as slowing the progress of science and the diffusion of useful findings. But critics of PLOS’s model have suggested author fees create an incentive for journals to maximize the number of papers published at the expense of adequate peer review and quality and can create barriers for authors with limited resources."

‘Maus’ Author Art Spiegelman: ‘We Are on the Brink of Fascism’; The Daily Beast, November 28, 2021

Sarah Moroz, The Daily Beast; ‘Maus’ Author Art Spiegelman: ‘We Are on the Brink of Fascism’

"“Comics are an art of communication,” Spiegelman said, standing firmly in contrast to so-called “high art.” In the past, “communicating too easily was considered commercial,” he noted, but countered simply: “I think art is anything that gives shape to your thoughts or feelings.”...

“Cartoonists are gone,” Spiegelman said. “Humor has become more and more dangerous… Pictures are dangerous.” Editors fear “different interpretations,” he lamented: “Newspapers want to keep every reader they have—so it’s better to talk to the stupid ones.” He concluded: “Every time someone says something satirical, they get cancelled.”"

The godfather of fake news: Meet one of the world’s most prolific writers of disinformation; BBC News, November 2018

Anisa Subedar, BBC News; The godfather of fake news:
 
Meet one of the world’s most prolific writers of disinformation

"As the conversation winds down, I ask Blair - this godfather of fake news - and the man who tracked him down, if they have any parting words.

“Don’t ever stop doing what you’re doing,” Blair says.

And, with a hint of respect in his voice, Schenk replies:

“Likewise."

‘Nothing on this page is real’: How lies become truth in online America; The Washington Post, November 17, 2018

Eli Saslow, The Washington Post; ‘Nothing on this page is real’: How lies become truth in online America

"She had seen hundreds of stories on Facebook about the threat of sharia, and this confirmed much of what she already believed. It was probably true, she thought. It was true enough.

“Do people understand that things like this are happening in this country?” she said. She clicked the post and the traffic registered back to a computer in Maine, where Blair watched another story go viral and wondered when his audience would get his joke."

One more lesson from Charlottesville: Our comedians are more ethical than our president; Salon, August 19, 2017

Sophia A. McClennen, Salon; One more lesson from Charlottesville: Our comedians are more ethical than our president

"This week we have now seen another key feature of satire: It offers ethical responses to unethical actions.

The ethics of satire is often hard to see, especially because comedy can so often be crass and crude...

This is all to say that comedians are unlikely moral leaders. And yet in the Trump era, when literally every value in our nation seems to have been turned upside down, we are now seeing comedians play an increasingly larger role as champions of good versus evil.

This is why as Meyers ended his monologue he directly went after Trump for failing to uphold his moral obligations as president of our nation:

The leader of our country is called the president because he’s supposed to preside over society. His job is to lead, to cajole, to scold, to correct our path, to lift up what is good about us and to absolutely and unequivocally and immediately condemn what is evil in us. And if he does not do that, if he does not preside over our society, then he is not a president. You can stand for a nation or you can stand for a hateful movement. You can’t do both. And if you don’t make the right choice, I am confident that the American voter will.

Meyers wasn’t just scolding Trump for failing at his job; he was also showing his audience what real leadership looks like." 

As fake news takes over Facebook feeds, many are taking satire as fact; Guardian, 11/17/16

Nicky Woolf, Guardian; As fake news takes over Facebook feeds, many are taking satire as fact:

"Facebook has a serious fake news problem, a major contributor to what has been called the “post-truth” era...

In a way, the problem is not a new one. Publications such as the National Enquirer in the US have long bent the truth, often shamelessly. But now, a fake story can much more easily masquerade as real because in Facebook’s walled garden all the posts look largely the same.

Even the most savvy news consumers can be tricked this way."

Adjusting to a World That Won’t Laugh With You; New York Times, 6/5/15

A.O. Scott, New York Times; Adjusting to a World That Won’t Laugh With You:

"It’s hard to ponder these issues without thinking about Charlie Hebdo. While the murder of editors and cartoonists is the kind of event that defeats comparison — a Tweetstorm of shaming is in no way similar to automatic-weapons fire — the aftermath of the January attack on that satirical magazine’s Paris offices has reignited longstanding quarrels in Europe and America about the limits of free expression and the ethics of humor. In the months following the killings, after the initial outpouring of horror and the international expressions of “Je suis Charlie” solidarity, attention turned to the content of the magazine itself, not only to cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed but also to what seemed to some to be a pattern of racist and anti-Muslim bigotry.

Nobody was excusing violence or suggesting that free speech be curtailed. But Charlie Hebdo found critics where it had also found champions, among the legions of Europeans and Americans who had long been content to ignore its existence. In a widely reported April lecture, Garry Trudeau, the creator of “Doonesbury” and as such the dean of American satirical cartoonists, took Charlie to task for “punching down,” for aiming its mockery at the vulnerable and the powerless, in particular France’s Muslims and immigrants. Mr. Trudeau’s remarks were echoed later in the spring when a group of writers, including Peter Carey and Francine Prose, boycotted a PEN gala at which the magazine’s surviving staff members were given an award for freedom of expression...

Does this mean we should shut up, and either insist that our comedy give no offense or that no one ever take any? That “It’s just a joke” or “You just didn’t get it” should end the discussion? Not at all. It just means that laughter is something we should all take seriously. And also that we should all lighten up."

French Arrests Raise Question: Is Free Speech for All?; Associated Press via New York Times, 1/25/15

Associated Press via New York Times; French Arrests Raise Question: Is Free Speech for All? :

"That has unleashed accusations of a double standard, in which free speech applies to those who mock Islam while Muslims are penalized for expressing their own provocative views. Many Muslims complain that France aggressively prosecutes anti-Semitic slurs, but that they are not protected from similar racist speech.

French police have arrested more than 70 people since the attacks for allegedly defending or glorifying terrorism. The most famous is comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, charged over a Facebook post saying "I feel like Charlie Coulibaly" — a merger of the names of magazine Charlie Hebdo and Amedy Coulibaly, the attacker who killed four hostages at the supermarket. The comic also has repeatedly been prosecuted for anti-Semitism.

Dieudonne later suggested he was being silenced by free-speech hypocrisy. "You consider me like Amedy Coulibaly when I am no different from Charlie," he wrote in an open letter to French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

Many countries have laws limiting free speech, and on paper most hate-speech rules do not discriminate against any particular faith or group."