The Babylon Bee launched a comprehensive legal challenge Wednesday against Hawaii’s controversial new law that criminalizes political satire.
The Bee is claiming the state has blatantly violated citizens’ fundamental First Amendment rights.
The popular satirical news website joined forces with Dawn O’Brien, a politically active Honolulu voter who operates influential Instagram and Facebook accounts with thousands of dedicated followers.
The plaintiffs argue Hawaii deliberately employed “vague and overbroad terms” that effectively grant state officials “unbridled enforcement” discretion to systematically suppress political memes and satirical content circulating online.
Hawaii enacted the sweeping legislation last summer.
It threatens severe penalties including jail time, substantial fines, civil lawsuits, monetary damages and a comprehensive 10-year disqualification from holding any public office for posting certain political satire images online that authorities deem “materially deceptive.”
The Babylon Bee and O’Brien are aggressively demanding that federal courts immediately block enforcement of the controversial law and officially declare it unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
“We’re used to getting pulled over by the joke police, but comedy isn’t a crime,” Seth Dillon, owner and CEO of The Babylon Bee, told The Daily Wire.
“The First Amendment protects our right to tell jokes, whether it’s election season or not. We’ll never stop fighting to defend that freedom.”
The expansive law specifically prohibits “materially deceptive media in reckless disregard of the risk of harming the reputation or electoral prospects of a candidate in an election or changing the voting behavior of voters in an election,” language the legal challenge characterizes as dangerously vague and subject to arbitrary interpretation.
Hawaii’s statute defines “materially deceptive media” as any content that “would cause a reasonable viewer or listener to believe that the depicted individual engaged in the speech or conduct depicted.”
The restrictive legislation mandates that all satirical content must include a prominent “disclaimer” specifically informing viewers that the content has been “manipulated” and depicts events or statements that “did not occur” in reality.
The comprehensive legal challenge argues that forcing content creators to add government-mandated disclaimers compels The Babylon Bee and O’Brien to “incorporate Hawaii’s desired messages” into their original content and fundamentally robs their satirical material of its essential “rhetorical force.”
The constitutional implications extend far beyond individual content creators, as the lawsuit emphasizes the historical importance of satirical commentary in American political discourse.
“Because of their effectiveness and appeal, satire and parody have been used throughout American history to express matters of current interest — especially matters of politics and politicians,” the detailed legal filing explicitly states.
Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel Mathew Hoffmann, who is actively representing the plaintiffs in this constitutional challenge, characterized Hawaii’s law as blatant government censorship of protected political speech.
“That’s censorship plain and simple,” Hoffmann told The Daily Wire.
“The bottom line is that we as the people exist in a self-governing society and we shouldn’t trust the government to set the terms for appropriate political debates.”
While Hawaii’s legislation specifically mentions “deepfakes” created by artificial intelligence technology, Hoffmann cautioned that the law’s actual scope extends “much more broadly” than advanced AI-generated content.
“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 explained in detail.
“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.”
Hoffmann emphasized that political cartoons have received comprehensive constitutional protection throughout United States history, noting that today’s internet memes represent the “modern day” equivalent of traditional editorial cartoons that have long served as vehicles for political commentary.
The legal expert predicted Hawaii’s restrictive law will create a significant chilling effect on ordinary Hawaiians who may choose to avoid posting “even questionable” satirical content online due to legitimate fears of criminal prosecution and severe penalties.
“This law is of immense concern to all people in Hawaii or even entities like the Babylon Bee who post articles and images and funny memes that are viewable in Hawaii because they can be subject to criminal penalties simply for exercising their First Amendment rights,” Hoffmann stated emphatically.
