On Monday, President Trump signed into law the "Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act" – otherwise known as the "Take It Down Act."
The new law (S.146) is intended to combat revenge porn as well as the other non-consensual distribution of sexual imagery online, including through the use of deepfakes. At the bill signing ceremony, First Lady Melania Trump said, "Artificial intelligence and social media are the digital candy of the next generation – sweet, addictive, and engineered to have an impact on the cognitive development of our children. But unlike sugar, these new technologies can be weaponized, shape believes, and sadly affect emotions and even be deadly."
The Take It Down Act generally prohibits the online publication of "intimate visual depictions" and "digital forgeries" of "identifiable individuals." The law uses an existing definition under federal law for "intimate visual depictions," which covers the depiction of various types of nudity and bodily fluids. The term "digital forgeries" is defined as AI and other computer generated intimate visual depictions that "when viewed as a whole by a reasonable person, is indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of an individual." And, the term "identifiable individual" is defined as someone who "appears in whole or in part in an intimate visual depiction" and "whose face, likeness, or other distinguishing characteristic (including a unique birthmark or other recognizable feature) is displayed in connection with such intimate visual depiction." The law provides for criminal penalties for violating these provisions.
Of particular importance to advertisers and other online platforms, the law also requires "covered platforms" to establish procedures for individuals to request the removal of prohibited imagery and to remove those images "as soon as possible," but no later than 48 hours after getting the request. The law defines "covered platforms," in relevant part, as websites and other online services that serve the public and that primarily provides a forum for "user-generated content, including messages, videos, images, games, and audio files." Failing to comply with these provisions is a violation of the FTC Act, enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission.
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