Tech Industry Reinforced Support for Deepfake Bill With Q1 Spending

Introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the Take It Down Act is headed to President Donald Trump’s desk after receiving unanimous support in the Senate and near-unanimous passage in the House (see 2504290049).

Meta, Snap, Google, Microsoft, TikTok, X, Amazon, Bumble, the Entertainment Software Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Internet Works publicly supported the bill, joining advocacy groups like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Fraternal Order of Police.

All of those companies and industry groups listed the Take It Down Act as a specific lobbying issue in Q1 reporting, which has been steadily trickling in since the March 31 deadline. Each company and association spent similar amounts in Q1 for both 2024 and 2025.

For example, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported spending $19.3 million in 2025 Q1 versus $23.4 million in 2024. Meta reported about $8 million for each quarter. TikTok parent company ByteDance reported about $2.8 million, and Google about $3 million. X reported it spent $170,000 for each quarter.

Cruz told us Wednesday on Capitol Hill that regulating AI on specific issues, rather than pursuing a comprehensive bill, is a good approach. Either way, the ultimate goal should be to beat China in developing the technology domestically, he said: An “overly prescriptive regulatory approach that requires innovators to seek prior approval from government bureaucrats and ask, ‘Mother, may I?’ ... is virtually certain to ensure that we lose the race for AI.”

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said there’s still a need for a comprehensive bill, even if some “rifle shots” are useful. “There’s so much to do on AI,” she said. “That’s an interesting question [on comprehensive versus issue-specific regulation] because there are some other things that you could do. It’s a broad area.”

Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told us Wednesday he’s still pursuing action on his own deepfake porn bill, the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (Defiance) Act. He told us he planned to meet with co-sponsors. The Defiance Act would establish a private right of action for victims of deepfake porn to sue violators posting non-consensual content.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said Congress should provide consumers with transparency rights when AI-driven algorithms make consequential decisions impacting their lives. Consumers should know how these systems are arriving at such decisions, he said.

Many states are pursuing comprehensive AI regulations, including the Lone Star State with its Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (TRAIGA) (see 2504240017). Cruz opposes TRAIGA (see 2504070074). Asked about TRAIGA Wednesday, he said he’s “focused far more on what’s happening here in Washington.”

TechEquity Vice President-AI Policy Vinhcent Le, in a statement to Privacy Daily, described TRAIGA as “industry friendly.” It would enable companies to “opt out of the law by claiming that a human is the final decision maker in what is actually an AI-driven decision,” he said. Opposition from Cruz and industry groups to weak AI bills “signals that the tech industry doesn't feel the need to compromise on any meaningful regulations of their technologies while, at the same time, they're working to outsource more and more critical decisions to AI systems.”