On Monday, First Lady Melania Trump expressed her support for the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which targets deepfakes.
Deepfakes are AI-generated videos and images. Many created are nonconsensual explicit images using someone’s likeness. Last year, for example, explicit deepfakes of Taylor Swift went viral on X, but it’s not just celebrities who are in danger of being deepfaked. Everyday people (typically women) are, too, and being a victim of deepfakes can be detrimental to someone’s mental health.
What is the TAKE IT DOWN Act?
As Mashable’s Meera Navlakha wrote in 2024, some U.S. states have already taken action against deepfakes, though regulations vary by location. Last month, though, the Senate passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, a bill that would make it a federal crime to knowingly publish or threaten to publish explicit imagery without someone’s consent, including AI-generated images, the Associated Press reported. TAKE IT DOWN is sponsored by members of both parties, including Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
Social media platforms would also have 48 hours to remove such content and prevent duplicates from being posted. The Federal Trade Commission could sue non-compliant platforms, according to Axios.
In a roundtable discussion on Capitol Hill on Monday, Melania Trump said, “Every young person deserves a safe online space to express themself freely, without the looming threat of exploitation or harm.”
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Despite the danger of deepfakes, many free speech organizations have concerns about the TAKE IT DOWN Act.
Why is the TAKE IT DOWN Act controversial?
Organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, and the Woodhull Freedom Foundation sent a letter to the Senate before the vote to express their reservations about the bill.
The letter argues that the goal of TAKE IT DOWN is laudable, but the current text would result in the takedown of consensual explicit images (aka porn) or even content like journalism or political speech.
“In its current form, the bill creates a notice and takedown (NTD) mechanism that would result in the removal of not just nonconsensual intimate imagery [NDII] but also speech that is neither illegal nor actually NDII,” the letter states. “This mechanism is likely unconstitutional and will undoubtedly have a censorious impact on users’ free expression.”
Other concerns are that TAKE IT DOWN Act would incentivize automatic filters, which could inaccurately flag legal content, and could pose a danger to end-to-end encryption (no one can read a message except the people sending and receiving it). Platforms may not be able to comply with the bill if they cannot see messages that potentially violate it, and the fear is that platforms would abandon encryption.
The organizations call for the act to be modified to account for these issues. Despite this, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bill soon.
