On Monday, May 19, 2025, President Donald Trump signed the “Take It Down Act” into law. The Act, which unanimously passed the Senate and cleared the House in a 409-2 vote, criminalizes the distribution of intimate images of someone without their consent. Lawmakers from both parties have commented that the law is long overdue to protect individuals from online abuse. It is disheartening that a law must be passed (almost unanimously) to require people and social media companies to do the right thing.
There has been a growing concern about AI’s ability to create deepfakes and distribute deepfake pictures and videos of individuals. The deepfake images are developed by tacking benign images (primarily of women and celebrities) with other fake content to create explicit photos to use for sextortion, revenge porn, and deepfake image abuse.
The Take It Down Act requires social media platforms to remove non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours of a victim’s request. The Act requires “websites and online or mobile applications” to “implement a ‘notice-and-removal’ process to remove such images at the depicted individual’s request.” It provides for seven separate criminal offenses chargeable under the law. The criminal prohibitions take effect immediately, but social media platforms have until May 19, 2026, to establish the notice-and-removal process for compliance.
The Take It Down Act is a late response to a growing problem of sexually explicit deepfakes used primarily against women. It makes victims have to proactively reach out to social media companies to take down images that are non-consensual, which in the past has been difficult. Requiring the companies to take down the offensive content within 48 hours is a big step forward in giving individuals the right to protect their privacy and self-determination.
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