Elon Musk's 'X Corp.' sues MN over constitutionality of political deepfake law

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Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, Elon Musk attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre on June 16, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Chesnot/ (Getty Images)

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ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - Elon Musk's company, X Corporation, filed a lawsuit against Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison challenging the constitutionality of a law that prohibits political misinformation from being shared through deepfakes. 

The law went into effect in 2023 and was meant to prevent deepfake technology from interfering in the 2024 election, according to the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State. 

X Corp. sues AG Keith Ellison 

Big picture view:

The lawsuit claims the state law "violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the United States Constitutition, because its requirements are so vague and unintelligible that social media platforms cannot understand what the statute permits and what it prohibits, which will lead to blanket censorship, including of fully protected, core political speech." 

READ MORE: Social media restrictions in Minnesota focus of new bills

The lawsuit also takes issue with the threat of criminal liability, saying there is no penalty for too much censorship, which incentivizes platforms to remove any content that could even be close to a deepfake under Minnesota statutes. 

Instead of government regulation, the lawsuit points to "robust policies and features" meant to address problematic content. Among those features are "Community Notes," which X uses to provide context to a post in the form of "replies," and can also outright disagree with the original post. 

Another feature includes an AI chatbot to help the user better understand the content. 

A full copy of the lawsuit can be viewed below:

What they're saying:

A spokesperson for the Minnesota Attorney General's Office released a statement, saying, "The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office is reviewing the lawsuit and will respond in court."

FOX 9 also reached out to the authors of the bill and will update this story if they respond.

Minnesota deepfake laws 

Dig deeper:

Minnesota lawmakers also hope to criminalize "nudification" technology that uses another person's likeness without their permission. 

The bill defines "nudify" as the "process by which an image or video is altered to reveal an intimate part that is not depicted in the original unaltered image or video."

READ MORE: Minnesota advances deepfakes bill to criminalize people sharing altered sexual, political content