Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
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Title: Trump will sign the Take It Down Act criminalizing AI deepfakes today

Date: Mon, 19 May 2025 18:43:58 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/trump-will-...

President Donald Trump is set to sign the Take It Down Act today, according
to CNN. The act is a piece of bipartisan legislation that criminalizes the
publication of "nonconsensual intimate visual depictions," including AI
deepfakes. The law made it through the US House of Representatives in April
2025, prompting concern from free speech advocates that believe parts of the
law could be easily abused to curtail speech.

The Take It Down Act was created to address the spread of nonconsensual,
sexually exploitative images online. Laws exist addressing the issue at the
state level, and some online platforms already have methods for requesting a
nonconsensual image or video be taken down. This new law would set a federal
standard, though, making taking down posts mandatory and directing companies
to create a system for requesting images or videos be removed, under the
supervision of the Federal Trade Commission.

The issue with the law as written, according to the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, is that its takedown provision "applies to a much broader
category of content...than the narrower NCII [nonconsensual intimate image]
definitions found elsewhere in the bill." The EFF also suggests that the
short time-frame of 48 hours that the Take It Down Act requires means that
smaller online platforms will probably just remove posts when they receive a
complaint rather than verify that the post actually violates the law.

Trump has expressed interest in taking advantage of the new law, as well.
"IΓÇÖm going to use that bill for myself, too, if you donΓÇÖt mind. ThereΓÇÖs
nobody gets treated worse than I do online. Nobody," Trump said during a
joint session of Congress in March. Given the lopsided composition of the
current FTC and the Trump administration's already loose interpretation of
existing laws, it's not hard to imagine how the original intentions of the
Take It Down Act could be twisted.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-
tech/trump-will-sign-the-take-it-down-act-criminalizing-ai-deepfakes-today-
184358916.html?src=rss

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