Gavin Newsom chuckles as he signs bills restricting AI use in election ads — but social media users may have last laugh

Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom snickered as he sat on the stage at a conference this week and signed three bills that will further restrict "deepfake" or "materially deceptive" election content in California, but defiant social media users shared an AI election video scorned by Newsom nonetheless.

On Tuesday, Newsom joined Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff onstage at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. Dreamforce is a tech conference that bills itself as "the largest AI event in the world."

'So that's how easy it is to govern.'

The event may have promoted AI, but the conversation between Newsom and Benioff seemed to focus on the problems associated with AI. When Newsom mentioned that he had 38 bills on his desk that related to digital concerns, Benioff suggested that Newsom take the opportunity of the Dreamforce conference to sign three such bills about election advertising containing AI material.

"I just thought, you know, why waste your time with a politician unless they're gonna do something for you?" Newsom said with a smile, a bundle of paper in his hand, and ostensibly drawing a pen from his jacket pocket. He then appeared to sign three pieces of paper.

"This is now official," he said with a laugh. "That is now injunctive relief if you do any of those 'deepfake' election misrepresentations.

"So that's how easy it is to govern."

Newsom, Benioff, and the audience may have found the situation humorous, but many others worry that the bills may further erode First Amendment protections of free speech.

AB 2655, also known as the Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act of 2024, requires online platforms "to block the posting of materially deceptive content related to elections in California" and "to label certain additional content inauthentic, fake, or false" during designated periods before and after an election.

AB 2355 expands upon existing law and requires a committee that creates, publishes, and/or distributes some political advertising to add a "disclosure" noting when an ad has been "generated or substantially altered" using AI. The bill addresses "any image, audio, or video that is generated or substantially altered using artificial intelligence" that would give a reasonable person "a fundamentally different understanding of the altered media when comparing it to an unaltered version."

AB 2839 also builds upon existing law that already prohibits people from knowingly distributing, with malice, election material containing "certain materially deceptive content." Previous law required this statute to be enforced 60 days before an election. It will now be enforced 120 days before an election and, in certain cases, up to 60 days afterward.

In a statement, Newsom insisted these speech restrictions were necessary for the sake of democracy.

"Safeguarding the integrity of elections is essential to democracy, and it’s critical that we ensure AI is not deployed to undermine the public’s trust through disinformation – especially in today’s fraught political climate," Newsom said. "These measures will help to combat the harmful use of deepfakes in political ads and other content, one of several areas in which the state is being proactive to foster transparent and trustworthy AI."

Billionaire Elon Musk, a professed Trump supporter who recently moved some of his companies out of California because of its onerous laws, called out Newsom for essentially proscribing election parody ads.

One particular video that went viral recently features a deepfake of Kamala Harris' voice bragging that she is "the ultimate diversity hire" who was "selected" to be the Democrat presidential nominee after "Joe Biden finally exposed his senility."

In July, Newsom specifically cited that viral video as the kind of "manipulating" election content that "should be illegal."

Early Wednesday morning, Musk tweeted the video out once again, demonstrating that he has no intention of abiding by California's new restrictions: "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."

Libs of TikTok has also shared the video this week in light of the new California laws. "This is the video that @GavinNewsom doesn’t want you to see," the account wrote.

Comedian Rob Schneider likewise called out Newsom for trying to restrict the funny video. "ALL FOLLOWERS PLEASE RETWEET THIS ONLY ILLEGAL IN CALIFORNIA PARODY…." he said.

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