Editorial cartooning Legal

Cartoon Facebook Page Wins First Amendment Lawsuit

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D. D. Degg Published: December 12, 2025 1 minute 1 comment

The Benito Beet Beat Facebook page has won the right to post anonymous cartoons criticizing the local government.

From sanbenito.com:

San Benito County and the First Amendment Coalition reached a settlement in a case involving a social media page that posted content that was allegedly threatening toward local officials and their families. 

Under the settlement, which was announced Dec. 5, the county agreed to withdraw a subpoena it had issued to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and to refrain from other efforts to identify the owners of the page known as “Benito Beet Beat.” 

The subpoena sought to identify and obtain other information about the Facebook users who publish Benito Beet Beat after they posted a Nov. 3 cartoon that county officials said included criminal threats. 

The owners of Benito Beet Beat, preferring to remain anonymous, sued the county to prevent Meta from revealing their identities. Represented by the nonprofit First Amendment Coalition, the Facebook subscribers file the federal lawsuit in the California Northern District Court. 

The offending cartoon by way of KSBW:

From Juan Pablo Perez Burgos at Benito Link:

Supervisors Kollin Kosmicki, Ignacio Velazquez, and Dom Zanger said they felt threatened by the post and wanted the county to take action. Although the authors removed the cartoon and issued a public apology [emphasis added], the county issued an administrative subpoena ordering Meta to identify the account’s owners, citing sections of the California Penal Code that criminalize threats against elected officials.

Earlier

a U.S. Magistrate Judge reviewed the case and found that the Facebook account and its lawyers were “likely to succeed” in showing the cartoon was protected political satire. She ordered the county to pause the subpoena and any efforts to identify the account’s administrators until a future hearing, which never took place because the parties reached a settlement.

The cartoons look, to this untrained eye, to be A.I. generated. The artist (prompter?) signs/initials most the cartoons. Regardless it is a win for first amendment cartoonists.