The Babylon Bee is no stranger to taking idiotic censorship laws to court:
And Hawaii's stupid, unconstitutional law is, we are pleased to report, no exception:
ALOHA to everyone except Hawaii's humor police!
Once again, we're teaming up with [the Babylon Bee] to challenge an unconstitutional state law censoring satire and political memes.
Similar to the California law challenged by the Bee last year, Hawaii's law prohibits the distribution of "materially deceptive media" that portrays politicians in a way that risks harming "the reputation or electoral prospects of a candidate."
As CEO Seth Dillon put it:
The Daily Wire reports that the Bee has filed its suit alongside Dawn O'Brien, "a Honolulu voter who runs Instagram and Facebook accounts with thousands of followers where she posts political memes criticizing Democrats."
The state law "threatens jail time, fines, lawsuits, damages, and a 10-year disqualification from holding public office for posting certain political satire images online deemed 'materially deceptive'."
(By "materially deceptive" I'm pretty sure they just mean "anything that a Democrat wouldn't like.")
ADF Senior Counsel Matt Hoffman says the law is extremely broad and goes beyond the "deepfakes" that have raised so many concerns in recent years:
'What the law says is, digital content that basically depicts something that didn't happen and that just risks harming someone's reputation or electoral prospects, whatever that means,' he said. 'So it wouldn't just be deepfakes as colloquially understood. It's really any digital content, any sort of images that may have been altered or Photoshopped, like what the Babylon Bee posts routinely online would be considered under this law to be materially deceptive.'
The state would force satire creators to add a disclaimer to their creations, which the plaintiffs argue would force them to "incorporate Hawaii's desired messages" into their works.
Pretty sure our friends are going to stomp this law in court and win another one for free speech. We'll keep you posted.
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