Here's Why the Babylon Bee Is Suing New Mexico

A satire site now has to slap a government-mandated warning label on its jokes. That's where New Mexico has landed with HB 182, and if you think that sounds like a solution in search of a problem, you're not wrong. The law was sold as a fix for deepfake election disinformation, which is a real thing worth worrying about. But the text is broad enough that the Babylon Bee, whose entire business model is publishing things that are obviously not true, now has to worry whether some AI-assisted image or edited clip triggers a disclosure requirement meant for people trying to fool voters into thinking a fake video is real.

The Bee doesn't fool anyone. Nobody reads "Biden Announces He Will Rule From The Grave" and thinks it's a wire report. That's the entire point of satire, and it's a genre with legal protection going back further than anyone in the New Mexico legislature has been alive. When a state statute can't tell the difference between election fraud and a punchline, the problem isn't the comedians, it's the drafting.

ADF's due process argument is worth taking seriously too. "Materially deceptive" is doing a lot of work in that statute, and vague language paired with civil penalties is exactly the kind of thing that chills speech before a single court ever rules on it. A cautious editor doesn't wait to find out if a judge agrees with him. He just doesn't run the piece.

Lawmakers chasing AI panic keep writing rules broad enough to catch whatever they're afraid of, and broad enough nets catch things they were never meant to hold. Satire is one of the oldest, most American forms of political speech there is. If New Mexico wants to fight actual disinformation, it can write a law that says so instead of leaving a comedy website to sort it out in federal court.