The House Just Passed A Major Bill To Fight Revenge Porn And Deepfakes
The House passed the bipartisan Take It Down Act, criminalizing nonconsensual explicit content, including AI deepfakes. When signed, platforms must remove flagged posts within 48 hours.
On Monday, the House voted 409 to 2 in favor of passing the Take It Down Act.
The bill, which criminalizes the nonconsensual sharing of sexually explicit content (yes, including AI-generated deepfakes), is now headed to President Trump’s desk. He’s expected to sign it.
Revenge porn and the digital exploitation of girls and women will soon be illegal. The Take It Down Act requires platforms to remove sexually explicit images within 48 hours of being notified. Failure to comply will lead to penalties. If the images involve minors, the person responsible could land up to three years in prison.
Senators Ted Cruz and Amy Klobuchar teamed up on the bill last year. Despite an initial gridlock, support from President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump gave it traction. Melania, whose "Be Best" initiative has focused on online safety and youth mental health, took a rare solo trip to Capitol Hill to show her support.
"It's heartbreaking to witness young teens, especially girls, grappling with the overwhelming challenges posed by malicious online content, like deepfakes," Melania Trump said at a roundtable in March. She also told reporters, "I was heartened to learn that Sen. Cruz and Sen. Klobuchar unified to prioritize this fundamental matter. Surely as adults, we can prioritize America's children ahead of partisan politics."
Senator Klobuchar was motivated by the stories of families whose children were harassed or emotionally tormented after explicit content was circulated. “It was one of the first times that we’ve actually gotten something done on consumer tech issues that is meaningful,” she said.
Every state except South Carolina already has laws criminalizing revenge porn, and around 20 have also addressed sexually explicit deepfakes. But what this law does is take it national and hold platforms accountable in a way that goes beyond just slapping a warning label on a post.
Representative María Elvira Salazar, who introduced the House version, said, "It is outrageously sick to use images – the face, the voice, the likeness – of a young, vulnerable female, to manipulate them, to extort them and to humiliate them publicly just for fun, just for revenge."
Revenge porn and deepfake exploitation have been festering online for years, often targeting teenage girls with devastating consequences.
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