Request by Elon Musk's xAI to temporarily halt Minnesota nudification technology ban denied by federal judge
A federal judge has denied a request for a temporary restraining order that would have stopped a Minnesota law that bans apps and websites that create fake, sexualized photos of people from going into effect, according to a court document filed on Friday.
Elon Musk's company xAI filed a motion for the order on Wednesday, nearly three months after the law was signed, online court records said. U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank said in Friday's ruling that "such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate."
The motion was filed one day after xAI filed a lawsuit over the statute, claiming it violates the First Amendment.
"HF 1606 flouts these foundational First Amendment principles," the lawsuit said. "It is content-based and vastly overinclusive: it bans protected non-sexual, consensual, and non-disseminated speech that has no connection to any legitimate interest in preventing distribution of nonconsensual nude images."
According to documents, the court will instead hear the motion as a motion for preliminary injunction. Frank ordered Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to file his opposition to it by Aug. 12, with xAI's final brief due Aug. 17.
A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Aug. 19, court records say.
"I'm proud to be in court defending the dignity of Minnesotans," Ellison said in response to Friday's ruling.
The law, which is set to go into effect on Saturday, also creates a pathway for victims and the Minnesota Attorney General's Office to prosecute companies that are behind this kind of technology. The bill passed unanimously in the state Senate earlier this year and was supported by all but one lawmaker in the House.
State Sen. Erin Maye Quade, a Democrat who authored the bill, said she started working on the bill two years ago after a group of women told her that a man in their life had taken photos off their social media accounts and turned them into hyperrealistic sexual images and videos.
"When the richest man in the world is suing you because you want to protect kids, you have to wonder — why doesn't he want them protected?" May Quade said after the lawsuit was filed.
