Jody Serrano
Editor in chiefEditor in Chief at Xataka On. Before joining Webedia, I was a tech reporter at Gizmodo and The Messenger. While I've covered all sorts of things related to technology, I'm specialized in writing about social media, Internet culture, Twitch, and streamers.
The law has finally caught up with deepfake porn. Today, President Donald Trump will sign the Take It Down Act into law, a bipartisan federal bill that makes it illegal to post nonconsensual intimate images of adults and children.
Here’s what you need to know.
A rare bipartisan effort. Introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), the bill received near unanimous bipartisan support in Congress. The bill makes it illegal to post real nonconsensual intimate images, often called “revenge porn,” and images generated by AI and other technological tools, which is sometimes called “deepfake porn.”
Supported by First Lady Melania Trump, the bill introduces several important changes in this legal area, such as covering images of adults as well as children. Including nonconsensual intimate images created by AI is another significant change, given that many laws on the books only covered authentic content.
Deepfake porn. While revenge porn has been in the public spotlight for years, deepfake porn is something newer. With the rise of AI, it’s been taken to new levels, allowing perpetrators to produce content that’s more realistic, though often just as damaging.
That’s what happened to Elliston Berry, a 15-year-old from Texas whose classmate used AI to remove her dress in a photo she posted on Instagram. The classmate then proceeded to send the deepfake nudes of Berry to people around the school.
"She came into our bedroom crying, just going, 'Mom, you won't believe what just happened,'" Anna McAdams, Berry’s mom, said.
Teens and adults in situations like Berry’s often had few options available to them. Laws across the country varied by state, and some of them ignored AI-generated content. Platforms, meanwhile, weren’t legally obligated to take the content down.
The Take It Down Act. That will change under the Take It Down Act, though. The law establishes criminal penalties for people who create and post nonconsensual intimate content, regardless of whether they’re real or generated by technology. Punishments include prison sentences of between two to three years.
The law also applies to tech platforms, including social media websites, email services, and sites that host user-generated content. It requires them to take down the content within 48 hours of being notified by the victim.
If the platform fails to take down the content in the established timeframe, it opens itself to regulatory action from the Federal Trade Commission.
Criticism. Not everyone is pleased with the bill. The Electronic Frontier Foundation acknowledged the bill’s good intentions but said it was the wrong approach, arguing that it will enable individuals to ask platforms to remove speech they don’t like.
Specifically, the foundation says that the takedown provision of the bill, which requires platforms to remove content within 48 hours, applies to a “much broader category of content.” It added that 48 hours isn’t enough time to determine whether the content in question is nonconsensual.
President Trump, for instance, has said he would use the bill to remove content about himself.
“Once it passes the House, I look forward to signing that bill into law,” the president said in March. “And I’m going to use that bill for myself too if you don’t mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody.”
Images | Howard Bouchevereau
View 0 comments