House Passes Legislation to Criminalize Nonconsensual Sharing of Sexual Images
The House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation to criminalize the nonconsensual sharing of sexually explicit photos and videos, including AI-generated images known as deepfakes. The bill, known as the Take It Down Act, aims to crack down on revenge porn and requires social media companies and online platforms to remove such images within two days of notification.
The legislation, introduced by Senators Ted Cruz and Amy Klobuchar, brings together an unlikely coalition of conservatives and liberals in both parties. It passed the Senate unanimously in February and was supported by President Trump, who mentioned it during his joint address to Congress last month.
The bill is the first internet content law to clear Congress since 2018, when lawmakers approved legislation to fight online sex trafficking. While it focuses on revenge porn and deepfakes, it is seen as an important step toward regulating internet companies that have for decades escaped government scrutiny.
Mounting Anger Against Social Media Platforms
The overwhelming support for the Take It Down Act highlights mounting anger among lawmakers toward social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X for hosting disinformation and harmful content, particularly images that hurt children and teenagers.
Though revenge porn and deepfakes affect adults and minors alike, both have been particularly potent for teenage girls. The spread of widely available nudification apps has spurred boys to surreptitiously concoct sexually explicit images of their female classmates and then circulate them.
Representative Mara Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican who introduced a companion bill in the House, said the bill would stop the abuse and harassment of young girls that was spreading like wildfire online. "It is outrageously sick to use images, the face, the voice, the likeness of a young, vulnerable female, to manipulate them, to extort them and to humiliate them publicly just for fun, just for revenge," she said.
The bill’s passage also echoes similar efforts in statehouses across the country. Every state except South Carolina has a law criminalizing revenge porn, and at least 20 states have laws that address sexually explicit deepfakes.
Bipartisan Efforts to Address Deepfake Pornography
The measure that passed on Monday is part of a yearslong bipartisan effort by lawmakers to address deepfake pornography. Senators Ted Cruz and Amy Klobuchar first introduced the bill last year, when it passed the Senate but died in the Republican-led House. It was reintroduced this year and appeared to gain momentum after it drew the support from the first lady, Melania Trump.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a millennial Democrat from New York, also introduced legislation last year that would have allowed those depicted in sexually explicit deepfakes to sue the people who created and shared them. That bill has not been reintroduced this year.
Lawmakers have in recent years rallied around several bills aimed at protecting children online from sexual exploitation, bullying, and addictive algorithms. In January 2024, chief executives of Meta, TikTok, and other tech firms testified before angry lawmakers, defending their platforms.
In the hearing, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, was forced to apologize to parents who had lost their children from online harms.
Some speech advocates have warned that the measure could chill free expression, saying such a law could force the removal of legitimate images along with nonconsensual sexual imagery.
Concerns About Constitutional Speech and Privacy
The best of intentions cant make up for the bills dangerous implications for constitutional speech and privacy online, said Becca Branum, the deputy director of the Free Expression Project for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a research group. "The Take It Down Act was a recipe for weaponized enforcement that risks durable progress in the fight against image-based sexual abuse," she added.
Reference : https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/us/politics/house-revenge-porn-bill.html
