EXCLUSIVE: Babylon Bee Sues California Over Unprecedented Crackdown On Satire, Parody

The Babylon Bee filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Monday after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of “deepfake” laws that target outlets that publish satire and parody.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and shared exclusively with The Daily Wire, begins by noting that in July of this year, California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that a parody video of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris should be “illegal.” “The legislature heard the call and passed two laws that forbid political expression under the label of ‘materially deceptive content,’” the lawsuit asserts.

The complaint explains that one of California’s new laws will require social media platforms to become “state snitches” and force them “to field reports about user posts with ‘materially deceptive content’ and then remove or label them.”

Newsom defended the state’s new laws, saying they focus on AI-generated content that could “undermine the public’s trust through disinformation.” But buried in one of the new laws is a requirement for satire and parody content to either be clearly labeled or removed.

In his first public statement on the lawsuit, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon told Daily Wire news podcast “Morning Wire” that one of the new California laws especially targets satirists, such as the writers at his company, “by requiring them to put disclaimers to let you know that this is parody that you’re reading right now – which completely stifles and kills the joke.”

“If we’re unable to publish satire without putting disclaimers all over it, and we’re going to face potential penalties if we don’t do that, then that’s a very serious issue too,” Dillon told Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley in an interview with “Morning Wire” released Monday. “So we’re fighting back in every way that we can against laws that clamp down on speech.”

The Bee’s suit against California is joined by California attorney Kelly Chang Rickert and was filed with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, whose president, Kristen Waggoner, warned that the leftist state’s new laws “target core political speech.”

“These laws were passed by politicians to protect politicians from speech that they don’t like,” Waggoner told “Morning Wire.”

The lawsuit is filed against California Attorney General Rob Bonta, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, and Los Angeles County City Attorney Hydee Soto.

The Bee’s popularity has skyrocketed under Dillon’s leadership after the satire site, which started by mainly writing about Christian topics, began focusing more on politics. The site’s content is regularly shared on social media by personalities with massive followings, including X owner Elon Musk.

California’s new laws are also being challenged by a conservative social media user, @MrReaganUSA, who recently posted a parody of a Kamala Harris campaign ad. The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, which filed a lawsuit against California on behalf of the social media user, argues that California is “chill[ing] free speech, particularly for political commentators like Mr. Reagan, who use satire to critique public figures and rely on social media viewership for their livelihood.”

The Bee’s complaint against California argues that satire and parody are protected speech under the First Amendment “because it trusts the American people to be able to think and decide for themselves in the context of debating political candidates and issues.”

The Bee’s new lawsuit adds to the growing list of complaints directed at government entities related to the censorship of conservative content. Late last year, The Daily Wire, along with The Federalist and the state of Texas, filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration. The suit alleges that the U.S. State Department is funding censorship technology that targets opposing political opinions, especially those expressed in conservative media outlets.