‘Take It Down’ Bill Signed into Law

AI Report

5/20/25

This article also pertains to high school girls who, increasingly, are victims.

President Donald Trump has signed the ‘Take It Down’ bill into law, meaning it will now be illegal to post and distribute non-consensual intimate images (including AI-generated ones). Trump clarified that “countless women have been harassed with deepfakes distributed against their will,” which is “just so horribly wrong,” so is “making it totally illegal.”

🔓 Key Points

  • The bill makes it a federal crime to “knowingly publish” or threaten to publish intimate images (real or AI-generated) without a person’s consent, and will be punishable by up to three years imprisonment plus fines.

  • Websites and social media platforms are also now obligated to take down any non-consensual material within 48 hours of being notified, and must “make reasonable efforts” to delete duplicates.

  • The bill was supported by the First Lady and over 100 tech companies—including Meta and Google—and was passed by both chambers of Congress almost unanimously (only 2 voted against it). 

🔐 Relevance 

Despite the huge support for the legislation, several critics from digital rights groups believe the bill is too “ambiguously drafted,” meaning it will “be hard for a court to parse when it will be enforced unconstitutionally.” They warn that “lawful content – including satire, journalism, and political speech – could be wrongly censored,” allowing users to sue if they have lawful content wrongly deleted from platforms. This is tied to the tight 48-hour timeframe websites and social media platforms have to delete illicit images. They worry that (in particular) the “smaller ones will have to comply so quickly to prevent legal risk that they will not be able to verify accusations properly.”

FULL STORY