• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, Yesterday

President Donald Trump is expected to sign legislation Monday afternoon that bans online publishing of non-consensual, sexually explicit images and videos, including those generated by AI, and require platforms to remove them within 24 hours.

The measure was introduced by Texas Rep. Sen. Ted Cruz, and Minnesota Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and later gained support from First Lady Melania Trump. The bill passed the Senate unanimously in February 2025 and the House with a 409 to 2 vote in April 2025.

The Take It Down Act makes publishing the content illegal and subjects violators to mandatory restitution and criminal penalties such as prison, fine, or both. 

With the bill, which passed the house in April, offenders who make threats to publish them will also be subject to criminal penalties. The images created using AI combine authentic and computer-generated images.

The Act aims to address the problem of non-consensual intimate image sharing, but also presents potential challenges for publishers and raises concerns about the potential for censorship.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is responsible with enforcing these provisions, but the law includes exemptions for disclosures made in good faith by medical professionals, law enforcement, and others acting ethically. 

The EFF raised concerns in a blog post published Monday, saying that the Act gives “the powerful a dangerous new route to manipulate platforms into removing lawful speech that they simply don't like."

One concern is the suggestion that the Act “applies to a much broader category of content — potentially any images involving intimate or sexual content — than the narrower NCII definitions found elsewhere in the bill. “

The Act also lacks what the EFF calls “critical safeguards against frivolous or bad-faith takedown requests.”

Automation in filters will determine and potentially remove or flag content online such as fair-use commentary and news reporting, according tot he EFF..