House Passes Take It Down Act on Near-Unanimous Vote Despite Privacy Concerns

It criminalizes the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery and requires platforms to remove illegal content within 48 hours of notice from a victim. President Donald Trump is expected to sign it into law (see 2504080063). The Senate passed the bill unanimously Feb. 13.

Congress correctly addressed non-consensual AI-generated content issues, but the legislation is only “half-right” because it contains fixable language that could force platforms to undermine encrypted services, said Public Knowledge in a statement Monday. PK also raised censorship concerns while questioning independence at the FTC, the agency that would enforce the new notice-and-takedown regime.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology have raised similar concerns. The bill “pressures platforms to actively monitor speech, including speech that is presently encrypted,” said EFF Activism Director Jason Kelley. “The law thus presents a huge threat to security and privacy online.” CDT previously called for the House to add encrypted services to the list of exempted entities, which includes broadband and email services.

Meta, Google, Microsoft, TikTok, X and Amazon have publicly backed the legislation, and First Lady Melania Trump has rallied around tech industry support for it. In a statement Monday, she called House passage a “powerful statement that we stand united in protecting the dignity, privacy, and safety of our children.”

Future of Privacy Forum Deputy Director-U.S. Policy Jameson Spivack noted on Tuesday that many states around the country are considering similar measures to combat non-consensual intimate deepfakes.

NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association haven’t taken a public position on the bill. Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Eric Burlison, R-Mo., were the only votes against the measure Monday.

Child safety advocates lauded the measure's passage. The legislation will “prevent mass-scale sexual abuse and reshape the online ecosystem to better prioritize combatting image-based sexual abuse,” said Eleanor Gaetan, public policy director at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

The bill had active and public support from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky. Johnson and Scalise in 2024 opposed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), with Johnson saying he wanted to get the “right” child-safety measure signed into law.

House Commerce Committee Republican staffer Evangelos Razis told the IAPP Global Privacy Summit on Thursday last week that the Take It Down Act is a good example of targeted AI-related legislation that focuses on concrete harms (see 2504240049).