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It is now illegal to distribute nonconsensual intimate images in the US. President Trump on Monday signed the Take It Down Act after it passed through Congress with near unanimous support last month.
Under the law, websites will need to "make reasonable efforts" to take down content and copies within 48 hours of a notification from a victim. It will be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but online platforms have up to a year to put into place a process to remove the images before the agency starts enforcing rules.
People found to be distributing images are subject to up to three years in prison, alongside fines. Many states previously had laws banning this type of abuse, but this is the first federal law.
AI tools for making deepfake pornography have grown in recent years. Elon Musk’s Grok AI tool was recently found to be able to generate images of fake pornography when a user asked to “remove her clothes” on various posts. A spate of dedicated deepfake pornography apps have also appeared in recent years.
Not everyone agrees this new law is the right way forward on "revenge porn." Critics include the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), an organization that describes its mission as combatting "online abuses that threaten civil rights and civil liberties."
Mary Anne Franks of the CCRI said, “The Take It Down Act also includes a poison pill: an extremely broad, easily abused takedown provision that will likely end up hurting victims more than it helps. It lacks adequate safeguards against false reports, is over- and under-inclusive, and gives false hope to victims.”
The CCRI is also not convinced the FTC is the best enforcement agency. "Platforms that feel confident that they are unlikely to be targeted by the FTC (for example, platforms that are closely aligned with the current administration) may feel emboldened to simply ignore reports of NDII," it said.