• by Wendy Davis , March 13, 2026

Elon Musk's X Corp, conservative video platform Rumble, right-wing satirical site Babylon Bee and others are asking a federal appeals court to preserve a block on a California law aimed at combatting online “deep fakes” in political ads.

The Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act (AB 2655), enacted in September 2024, would have required large online platforms to block “materially deceptive” content -- defined to include anything portraying political candidates as saying something they didn't say, and “reasonably likely” to harm candidates' reputations or their chances of winning.

U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez in Sacramento struck down the law last year, ruling that it was overriden by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which immunizes platforms from liability for content posted by users.

In January, California Attorney General Rob Bonta asked the 9th Circuit to reinstate the law.

X Corp. is opposing that request, arguing in a brief filed Thursday that the statute violates Section 230 by requiring platforms "to adopt a government-imposed system for regulating certain political content."

"As this Court has repeatedly made clear, Section 230(c)(l) 'shields from liability all publication decisions, whether to edit, to remove, or to post, with respect to content generated entirely by third parties,'" X argues, quoting from prior 9th Circuit ruling addressing the 1996 media law.

The Babylon Bee, Rumble, political commentator Christopher Kohls and others argue in a separate appellate brief that the law also violates the First Amendment.

"AB 2655 doesn’t advance any compelling government interest because it imposes paternalistic, selective limitations on speech that deprive the people of their right to speak about politics," they argue. "California also didn’t prove that the content it targets has ever deceived a single voter -- let alone one in California."

California lawmakers passed the measure soon after Musk shared a video of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris that was created with artificial intelligence. The video, created by right-wing political commentator Christopher Kohls, falsely presented her as saying, "I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate."

The clip, still available on YouTube, is currently labeled as parody and carries the disclaimer "altered or synthetic content."