President Trump signs bill criminalizing deepfake and “revenge porn”

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - President Donald Trump signed legislation on Monday that criminalizes the nonconsensual sharing of sexually explicit images.

The bill, known as the Take It Down Act, makes the publishing of nonconsensual A.I.-generated and authentic non-consensual intimate imagery a federal crime, punishable up to three years in prison.

The legislation also requires online platforms to remove such images within two days of notification and requires that “reasonable efforts” be made to remove copies of the images.

“We will not tolerate online sexual exploitation and especially, it’s gone on at levels that nobody’s ever seen before,” said President Trump. “It’s getting worse and worse, and I think this is going to hopefully stop it.”

First Lady Melania Trump ed the president for the g of the bill in the White House Rose Garden. She championed the legislation and lobbied lawmakers to it earlier this year.

“This legislation is a powerful step forward in our efforts to ensure that every American, especially young people, can feel better protected from their image or identity being abused through non-consensual, intimate imagery,” said the first lady.

The bill was first introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in 2024.

“It’s an incredible milestone. It’s a bipartisan effort that we came together to protect kids,” said Sen Cruz after the g ceremony. “And I don’t think there’s anything more important we can do than to protect kids. We’re seeing so many teenage girls, so many women who are victimized, victimized by non-consensual intimate imagery, sometimes real images, and more and more frequently, deepfakes, deepfakes made using A.I.”

Sen. Cruz drafted the bill after a Texas student named Elliston Berry, then 14, reached out to his office, and told the senator that she was unable to get A.I.-generated deepfakes of her removed from the social media app, Snapchat.

Berry also attended the bill g ceremony and said she was happy to see her advocacy pay off.

“This has been a such a full circle moment. I mean, when this first happened, I was so terrified, I felt so isolated,” she said. “It’s been over a year now, of me doing media and talking about it, it’s been such a healing process for me.”

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