By The Epoch Times | Created at 2025-03-03 23:48:43 | Updated at 2025-03-04 05:22:29
5 hours ago
The bill unanimously passed the Senate and still needs to clear the House.
A bill that would criminalize deepfake and revenge pornography has secured the backing of First Lady Melania Trump.
Delivering her first public remarks since her husband took office, Trump urged Congress to pass the Take It Down Act on March 3, noting its alignment with her “Be Best” initiative’s focus on online safety.
“This legislation is essential for addressing the growing concerns related to online safety, protecting individual rights, and promoting a healthier digital environment,” she told members of both congressional chambers at a round table on Capitol Hill.
“By advocating this bill, Congress can take an important step towards ensuring accountability and fostering responsible online behavior. The Take It Down Act bill represents a powerful step toward justice, healing, and unity.”
The bill, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), would make it illegal to knowingly publish or threaten to publish non-consensual intimate imagery—often called revenge porn—online. Such images are often generated through artificial intelligence (AI), which can make fake pictures or videos appear authentic.
Cruz said the legislation was inspired by the personal story of one of his constituents, Elliston Berry of Aledo, Texas, who became a victim of deepfake pornography at just 14 years old.
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Recounting her experience for lawmakers, Berry said she woke up one morning to a friend’s messages notifying her that AI-generated photos of her face on a nude body were circulating on social media.
“Fear, shock, and disgust were just some of the many emotions I felt,” Berry said. “I felt responsible and began to blame myself and was ashamed to tell my parents, despite doing nothing wrong.”
Berry’s mother repeatedly contacted Snapchat, begging for the photos to be removed from the platform. Nine months later, when she turned to Cruz for help, the images were still there.
The senator said the photos were removed after his office called the company.
“It should not take a sitting senator or sitting member of Congress picking up the phone to get a picture down or a video down,” he said. “It should be the right of every American. Every teenage girl victimized should have the right to get this garbage taken down, and this bill will give them that right as a matter of federal law.”
Victims Call for Change
Francesca Mani was one of several girls who faced the same situation as Berry at her school in Westfield, New Jersey.
“Despite the seriousness of the incident, only one boy received a one-day suspension,” Mani said. “Two years later, those responsible are still in my school, representing in team sports as if nothing ever happened. That is not OK.”
Breeze Liu expressed similar frustration over the lack of help she received after finding out that someone she had previously dated filmed her without her consent and then published the videos on a pornographic website.
“I was victim-blamed and slut-shamed, while the perpetrator faced zero consequences,” Liu said. “As more videos spread to hundreds of malicious websites, I nearly lost everything: my dignity, my reputation, and I almost lost my life.”
South Carolina state Rep. Brandon Guffey’s son, Gavin, did lose his life after falling prey to a sexual extortion, or “sextortion,” scheme. Someone posing as a female college student convinced the 17-year-old to share explicit photos of himself and then threatened to publicize them if he didn’t pay.
“It was an hour and 40 minutes from the time that he was contacted until the time that he took his life,” Guffey said.
In each case, the victims experienced a feeling of helplessness that Liu attributed to a legal system that has yet to grasp how to address the complications of evolving technologies.
“When you reach for help, you find there is none—no accountability, no recourse, just a system that shrugs and says, ‘It’s too complicated. It’s impossible to fix. The internet is too big.’ But America is a nation that does not accept ‘impossible,’” she said.
Through her company, Alecto AI, Liu now offers others a facial-recognition tool to search for non-consensual pornographic images of themselves online.
“We have the technology to fix this,” she said. “We have the legislation to create accountability. Now, we need the will to act.”
(L-R) Francesca Mani, U.S. first lady Melania Trump, Elliston Berry, and Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) take a photograph after a roundtable discussion on the "Take It Down Act" in the Mike Mansfield Room at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 3, 2025. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Road to Passage
The Take It Down Act passed the Senate with unanimous support, though only one Democrat lawmaker participated in the roundtable discussion.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) thanked the first lady for her bipartisanship on the issue. He said he appreciated that she was “looking at this as a parent and as a leader and not through politics.”
Khanna represents Silicon Valley, where much of the innovation driving the evolution of AI is based. While noting that he is proud of the innovation in his district, the congressman stressed that the United States should lead in ensuring that technology protects people rather than harms them.
Other Democrats have backed the bill in the House, including Reps. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Susie Lee (D-Nev.), and Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.).
Their support should insulate the bill from potential Republican defectors. If the Senate vote is any indication, that likely won’t be a problem for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as he brings the bill to the floor.
Johnson, who sat in for the meeting, said Republicans were anxious to pass the bill and send it to the president’s desk “because we’ve got to do what we can to stop this, and I am a full supporter of it.”
