Senator Young, colleagues reintroduce bill to protect victims of deepfake revenge porn

U.S. Senators Todd Young (R-Ind.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) reintroduced the TAKE IT DOWN Act, legislation that would criminalize the publication of non-consensual, sexually exploitative images—including AI-generated deepfakes—and require platforms to remove images within 48 hours of notice.

“We are increasingly seeing instances where generative AI is used to create exploitative images of an individual based on a clothed image,” said Senator Young. “This bipartisan bill builds on existing federal law to protect Americans, particularly young women, from harmful deepfakes and establishes a requirement for websites to take down this type of explicit and disturbing material. This is a sensible step to protect Americans and establish appropriate guardrails.”

“There’s too many predators out there who are abusing new technologies like generative artificial intelligence to spread fake and exploitative sexual images online, particularly against young girls and teenagers. The TAKE IT DOWN Act is a common-sense solution that empowers victims of this heinous crime. As Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, it is one of my top priorities to protect Americans from this devious act and ensure Big Tech does not remain complicit,” said Senator Cruz.

“We must provide victims of online abuse with the legal protections they need when intimate images are shared without their consent, especially now that deepfakes are creating horrifying new opportunities for abuse,” said Senator Klobuchar. “This bipartisan legislation builds on my work to ensure that victims can have this material removed from social media platforms and law enforcement can hold perpetrators accountable.”

The TAKE IT DOWN Act unanimously passed the Senate Commerce Committee and the Senate during the last session of Congress. The bill has also received widespread support from over 100 organizations, including victim advocacy groups, law enforcement, and tech industry leaders.

U.S. Representatives Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL-27) and Madeleine Dean (D-PA-4) are leading this effort in the House of Representatives.

Background:

While nearly every state has a law protecting people from non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including 30 states with laws explicitly covering sexual deepfakes, these state laws vary in classification of crime and penalty and have uneven criminal prosecution. Further, victims struggle to have images depicting them removed from websites, increasing the likelihood the images are continuously spread and victims are retraumatized.

In 2022, Congress passed legislation creating a civil cause of action for victims to sue individuals responsible for publishing NCII. However, bringing a civil action can be incredibly impractical. It is time-consuming, expensive, and may force victims to relive trauma. Further exacerbating the problem, it is not always clear who is responsible for publishing the NCII.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act would protect and empower victims of real and deepfake NCII while respecting speech by:

Criminalizing the publication of NCII in interstate commerce. The bill makes it unlawful for a person to knowingly publish NCII on social media and other online platforms. NCII is defined to include realistic, computer-generated pornographic images and videos that depict identifiable, real people. The bill also clarifies that a victim consenting to the creation of an authentic image does not mean that the victim has consented to its publication.

Protecting good faith efforts to assist victims. The bill permits the good faith disclosure of NCII, such as to law enforcement, in narrow cases.

Requiring websites to take down NCII upon notice from the victim. Social media and other websites would be required to have in place procedures to remove NCII, pursuant to a valid request from a victim, within 48 hours. Websites must also make reasonable efforts to remove copies of the images. The FTC is charged with enforcement of this section.

Protecting lawful speech. The bill is narrowly tailored to criminalize knowingly publishing NCII without chilling lawful speech. The bill conforms to current First Amendment jurisprudence by requiring that computer-generated NCII meet a “reasonable person” test for appearing indistinguishable from an authentic image.

The legislative text can be found here.