The U.S. Senate on Dec. 3 unanimously passed bipartisan legislation supported by U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) that aims to protect victims of real and deepfake revenge pornography, a crime that is increasingly impacting America’s youth.
The Senate approved the Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act, also known as the TAKE IT DOWN Act, S. 4569, introduced June 18 by U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). Rep. Salazar and U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) introduced the identical H.R. 8989 in the U.S. House on July 10.
“By voting for the TAKE IT DOWN Act, the Senate took a stand to protect women and girls victimized by bad actors stealing their likenesses to create fake revenge porn,” said Rep. Salazar. “To my colleagues in the House of Representatives: let’s join the Senate and pass this bill to protect these innocent victims now.”
Revenge porn, which is formally known as non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), would be criminalized under the measure if such images are published and would require websites to quickly remove them, according to a bill summary provided by Rep. Salazar’s staff.
“The Senate’s passage of the TAKE IT DOWN Act is a significant step forward in Congress’ responsibility to swiftly regulate some of the most harmful developments of AI — and urgently defend victims and survivors of exploitative deepfakes and non-consensual intimate imagery,” said Rep. Dean. “We must defend victims and ensure these images are removed from the internet. I am eager to work with Congresswoman Salazar to tackle these critical issues.”
Specifically, the measure would criminalize the publication of NCII or the threat to publish NCII in interstate commerce, and protect good faith efforts to assist victims by permitting the good faith disclosure of NCII for the purpose of law enforcement or medical treatment, according to the summary.
If enacted, the bill also would require websites to take down NCII upon notice from the victims within 48 hours, and require that computer-generated NCII meet a ‘reasonable person’ test for appearing to realistically depict an individual, so as to conform to current First Amendment jurisprudence, the summary says.