Melania Trump took to Capitol Hill on Monday for her first solo appearance since the start of President Trump’s second term, lobbying Congress for the passage of the “Take It Down Act,” a bill that would make it a federal crime to post intimate images of a person online without their consent – whether real, deepfaked or AI-generated – and require technology companies to remove the offending imagery from their site within 48 hours. “It’s heartbreaking to witness young teens, especially girls, grappling with the overwhelming challenges posed by malicious online content, like deepfakes,” the First Lady said. “In an era where digital interaction[s] are integral to daily life, it is imperative that we safeguard children from mean-spirited and hurtful online behavior.”
The bill passed with bipartisan support in the Senate, sponsored by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and has yet to reach House, where it is sponsored by Reps. Maria Salazar, (R-FL), and Madeleine Dean, (D-PA). Nearly every state in the union has passed a law prohibiting the distribution or production of nonconsensual pornography, with South Carolina being the only outlier after Massachusetts passed a law on the matter in June 2024. A federal law addressing the issue was passed in 2022 as part of the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, allowing a person to sue someone in federal court for disseminating intimate images of them online.
The legislation being proposed today goes beyond the 2022 law, and may present ramifications for entities that run websites. According to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996, operators of internet services and websites are not considered publishers of the content their users post, and therefore do not currently have an obligation to remove such content themselves. This permissive stance came from an era of the internet before revenge porn, and was mostly meant to give publishers some leeway for vitriolic comments sections and forums that they did not publish themselves. In this model, Facebook, YouTube and the like are not liable for what their users may post.
However, changes to this rule brought about by the Take It Down Act have raised concerns that it is a foot in the door for broader censorship. “Protecting victims of these heinous privacy invasions is a legitimate goal. But good intentions alone are not enough to make good policy,” says India McKinney of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for civil liberties in digital spaces. “As currently drafted, the TAKE IT DOWN Act mandates a notice-and-takedown system that threatens free expression, user privacy, and due process, without addressing the problem it claims to solve.” EFF notes that, among other issues, the 48-hour time limit imposed on website operators would likely lead them to resort to automated flagging systems that are already “infamous for flagging legal content, from fair-use commentary to news reporting.” End-to-end encrypted communications – which operators of messaging apps use to ensure privacy – could also be threatened.
Politico reports that the House version of the bill will reach the Energy and Commerce Committee within the next few weeks.
