The Babylon Bee is taking New Mexico to court over a state law that requires warning labels on certain AI-generated political content, arguing the mandate threatens political satire by forcing comedians to explain the joke before readers can laugh.
The Christian satire site filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against New Mexico officials, with backing from Alliance Defending Freedom, challenging provisions of House Bill 182, the 2024 law that amended the state’s Campaign Reporting Act to regulate what it calls “materially deceptive media.”
The law requires covered political advertisements that use artificial intelligence to generate or manipulate images, video, or audio to include a prominent disclaimer stating that the content was created or altered by AI.
Supporters of the law have framed it as a safeguard against deepfakes and election misinformation. But The Babylon Bee says New Mexico crossed a constitutional line by dragging satire, parody, cartoons, memes, and political comedy into the disclaimer regime.
The lawsuit argues that the state’s forced label does not merely disclose technical information — it changes the message.
According to the complaint, the disclaimer “alters the content” of the satire by telling viewers upfront that the communication is satirical or parodic, stripping it of its intended effect. The lawsuit puts it more bluntly: HB 182 “spoils the joke as it begins.”
Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee, told Fox News Digital the problem is not just about bad comedy policy. It is about compelled speech.
“New Mexico is stuffing words into our mouths,” Dillon said, arguing the state is forcing the Bee to say something it otherwise would not say.
That gets to the heart of the challenge. Political satire works because it imitates, exaggerates, mocks, and surprises. A state-mandated warning label announcing that something is artificially generated or manipulated can defeat the entire point, especially when the audience is meant to understand the absurdity through context.
The Bee recently posted an AI-generated satirical travel advertisement mocking Democratic-run New Mexico and state Supreme Court Justice David K. Thomson, who is on the November ballot. In the parody, an AI-generated Thomson says the court rules “against the Second Amendment, the First Amendment or any other amendment that lets people do things.”
The Bee says it plans to continue producing AI-assisted satire about candidates and ballot questions in New Mexico, but does not want to publish under the state’s required label.
Dillon said the site is not backing down.
“The concern is real, but we don’t censor ourselves,” Dillon told Fox. “If a joke we want to tell is likely to violate the law, we’ll tell it, anyway — both because we have a right to, and we refuse to do the tyrant’s work for him.”
The lawsuit names members of the New Mexico Ethics Commission, which enforces the challenged provisions, as defendants. The Bee and ADF are asking the court to block enforcement.
ADF Chief Legal Counsel Jim Campbell told Fox that the case is about protecting core political speech.
“The government cannot decide which political speech is allowed,” Campbell said, warning that when officials control acceptable political speech, “dissent disappears.”
The law itself contains a carveout for satire or parody only if the required disclaimer is included. In other words, New Mexico says parody may be safe from violation — but only if the speaker first labels it in the precise way the state commands.
Even New Mexico’s own Democratic officials have acknowledged legal problems with that setup.
When Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed HB 182, she wrote that portions of the legislation were ambiguous and could “pose legal issues.” In July 2025, Attorney General Raúl Torrez issued an advisory opinion concluding the disclaimer requirement for satire and parody was “likely unconstitutional on its face.”
Torrez’s opinion explained that satire and parody, by definition, are not likely to mislead a reasonable viewer into believing they reflect actual facts. Therefore, he wrote, there is insufficient justification for forcing disclaimers on those forms of political expression.
The New Mexico Ethics Commission dismissed the lawsuit in a statement to Fox, calling the pre-enforcement challenge “baseless.” The commission said it has never enforced the AI disclaimer requirements against political parody or satire.
“While the Babylon Bee has a First Amendment right to mock New Mexico,” the commission said, “it does not have a right to extract attorneys’ fees from the State.”
That response may not solve the constitutional problem. A law does not have to be enforced repeatedly before speakers can argue it chills protected speech, especially when fines and legal penalties are sitting on the books.
The case also places New Mexico inside a growing national fight over artificial intelligence, elections, and free speech. States are increasingly trying to police deepfakes and AI-generated campaign content. But the danger, critics argue, is that broad “anti-misinformation” laws can easily become tools for regulating jokes, memes, and dissent.
Alliance Defending Freedom has represented The Babylon Bee in similar challenges in California and Hawaii, where courts ruled against state restrictions on political satire and deepfakes.
Now New Mexico’s law is next in the crosshairs.
The question before the court is not whether voters should know when AI is being used deceptively in politics. The question is whether the government can force political comedians to slap a warning label on satire — even when the warning destroys the point of the speech.
For The Babylon Bee, the answer is simple: government-mandated joke explanations are not transparency.
They are censorship by another name.
I thought the video was sadly hilarious. I do think it hit too close to the truth for the politicos and lawyers.