Platforms Will Have 48 Hours to Remove Flagged Revenge Porn

A bill targeting revenge porn and "deepfake" nudes, supported by first lady Melania Trump, passed the House in a 409-2 vote on Monday after unanimously passing the Senate in February and is now expected to receive the president's signature. What you need to know about the bipartisan Take It Down Act:

• What it says: The bill makes it a federal crime to publish real or fake nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII), including videos, of any person and requires online platforms to remove such imagery within 48 hours of a reported violation, per the Washington Post.
• The issue: NCII is "often used to harass, intimidate, or embarrass young women and teens," who've "described their efforts to get nonconsensual nudes scrubbed from the internet as a nightmarish game of whack-a-mole," per the Post.

• Victim accounts: At a Capitol Hill roundtable in March, South Carolina state GOP Rep. Brandon Guffey described how his 17-year-old son killed himself after sending nude images to a sextortion scammer. A 14-year-old girl told how a male classmate had used an AI app to create fake pornographic images of her and shared them with other students.
• 'Holding predators accountable': GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, who co-authored the Senate version of the bill, said the passage was a victory for "the heroic survivors who shared their stories and the advocates who never gave up," per Time. "By requiring social media companies to take down this abusive content quickly, we are sparing victims from repeated trauma and holding predators accountable," he added, per the Hill.
• Trump to sign: The president told a joint session of Congress in early March that he would sign the bill once passed. "And I'm going to use that bill for myself, too, if you don't mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online," he said, per the Hill.
• Melania's support: The first lady championed the bill as part of her "Be Best" campaign against cyberbullying, per the Post. Its passage "is a powerful statement that we stand united in protecting the dignity, privacy, and safety of our children," she said.

• Tech companies: Facebook and Instagram owner Meta backed the legislation, as did Google, TikTok, and Snapchat, per CBS News and the Post.
• Opposed: Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Eric Burlison of Missouri were the "no" votes, per the Hill. "I feel this is a slippery slope, ripe for abuse, with unintended consequences," Massie wrote on X.
• Criticism: The well-intentioned bill omits "appropriate safeguards to prevent the mandated removal of content that is not [NCII], making it vulnerable to constitutional challenge and abusive takedown requests," Becca Branum of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Free Expression Project tells the Hill. She also fears "weaponized enforcement" by Trump's "partisan" Federal Trade Commission, per the Post.

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