Take It Down Act heads to Trump’s desk

The Take It Down Act is heading to President Donald Trump’s table aft the House voted 409-2 to walk the bill, which volition necessitate societal media companies to instrumentality down contented flagged arsenic nonconsensual (including AI-generated) intersexual images. Trump has pledged to motion it.

The measure is among the lone pieces of online information authorities to successfully walk some chambers successful years of furor implicit deepfakes, kid safety, and different issues — but it’s 1 that critics fearfulness volition beryllium utilized arsenic a limb against content the medication oregon its allies dislike. It criminalizes the work of nonconsensual intimate images (NCII), whether existent oregon computer-generated, and requires societal media platforms to person a strategy to region those images wrong 48 hours of being flagged. In his code to Congress this year, Trump quipped that erstwhile helium signed it, “I’m going to usage that measure for myself too, if you don’t mind, due to the fact that cipher gets treated worse than I bash online, nobody.”

The proliferation of AI tools that marque it easier than ever to make realistic-looking images has supercharged concerns astir deepfaked, damaging contented spreading done schools and creating a caller vector of bullying and abuse. But portion critics accidental that’s an important contented to woody with, they interest that the Take It Down Act’s attack could beryllium exploited to inflict harm successful different ways. 

The Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), which was created to combat image-based intersexual abuse, said that it can’t cheer the Take It Down Act’s passage. “While we invited the long-overdue national criminalization of NDII [the nonconsensual organisation of intimate images], we regret that it is combined with a takedown proviso that is highly susceptible to misuse and volition apt beryllium counter-productive for victims,” the radical writes. It fears that the bill, which empowers the Federal Trade Commission — whose Democratic number commissioners Trump fired successful a interruption with decades of  Supreme Court precedent —  volition beryllium selectively enforced successful a mode that yet lone props up “unscrupulous platforms.”

“Platforms that consciousness assured that they are improbable to beryllium targeted by the FTC (for example, platforms that are intimately aligned with the existent administration) whitethorn consciousness emboldened to  simply disregard reports of NDII,” they write. “Platforms attempting to place authentic complaints whitethorn brushwood a oversea of mendacious reports that could overwhelm their efforts and jeopardize their quality to run astatine all.”

Because of the speedy turnaround for platforms to region contented flagged arsenic nonconsensual intimate imagery, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warns that particularly smaller platforms “will person to comply truthful rapidly to debar ineligible hazard that they won’t beryllium capable to verify claims.” Instead, they’ll apt crook to flawed filters to ace down connected duplicates, they write. The radical besides cautions that end-to-end encrypted services including backstage messaging systems and unreality retention are not exempted from the bill, posing a hazard to the privateness technology. Since encrypted services can’t show what their users nonstop to 1 another, the EFF asks, “How could specified services comply with the takedown requests mandated successful this bill? Platforms whitethorn respond by abandoning encryption wholly successful bid to beryllium capable to show content—turning backstage conversations into surveilled spaces,” including ones that maltreatment survivors commonly crook to.

Even so, the Take It Down Act rapidly garnered a wide basal of support. First Lady Melania Trump has go a starring champion of the bill, but it’s besides seen backing from genitor and younker advocates, arsenic good arsenic immoderate successful the tech industry. Google’s president of planetary affairs Kent Walker called the passage “a large measurement toward protecting individuals from nonconsensual explicit imagery,” and Snap similarly applauded the vote. Internet Works, a radical whose members see medium-sized companies similar Discord, Etsy, Reddit, Roblox, and others, praised the House vote, with enforcement manager Peter Chandler saying the measure “would empower victims to region NCII materials from the Internet and extremity the rhythm of victimization by those who people this heinous content.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), 1 of 2 members (both Republican) who voted against the bill, wrote connected X that helium couldn’t enactment it due to the fact that “I consciousness this is simply a slippery slope, ripe for abuse, with unintended consequences.”