A bill in the California Senate would stop the spreading of memes during election season because they might be false or hurt the image of a political candidate.

The Defending Democracy from Deepfakes Act of 2024 is the name of the bill. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is ready to sign it. It will become law when the governor signs it by the end of September 2024.

The bill’s summary says that current law says anyone or any group can’t spread false audio or visual media about an election candidate within 60 days of the election if they want to “harm the candidate’s reputation or trick a voter into voting a certain way.”

Under the new law, any “large online site” would have to block material that is thought to be misleading before and after an election.

According to Reclaim the Net, this means that 120 days before any election and 60 days after an election, social media sites would have to mark material as “inauthentic, fake, or false.”

Jokes and pictures that were made by AI or that could hurt the candidate’s name could be taken down.

Political campaigns that run ads would have to say if their ads included information made by AI.

According to the law, platforms would also have to come up with ways for people in California to report material that “has not been stopped or labeled in line with the act.”

Candidates, officials, poll officials, government officials, and district or city lawyers could sue platforms if they don’t follow the rules.

There is still no word on who will decide what “satire or parody” content is protected, even though the bill said it would. Even with this caveat, Governor Newsom has already said that he supports laws that ban comedy.

Elon Musk, the owner of X, shared a clearly fake Kamala Harris campaign ad again. This made Newsom call for similar content to be banned.

“It should be illegal to change the voice in a ‘ad’ like this one,” Newsom wrote on July 28. “As soon as I sign a bill, I’ll know for sure that it is.”

Musk replied, “I asked Professor Suggon Deeznutz, a well-known expert in the world, and he said that parody is allowed in the United States.”