.jpg){kind=link}
Legislators hope to pass a federal law that would punish platforms for non-consensual deepfakes.
Senator Ted Cruz introduced the “Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks (TAKE IT DOWN) Act” on Tuesday, co-sponsored by a group of 12 bipartisan lawmakers.
This is the first bill that would penalize platforms for hosting deepfakes.
According to the bill’s text, social media platforms and other sites that host user-generated content would be required to have procedures in place for removing non-consensual intimate imagery, including deepfakes, within 48 hours of a victim’s request. Platforms also have to make a “reasonable effort” to remove copies of the content. Enforcement would fall under the FTC’s purview, the bill says.
“Social media platforms and those that distribute revenge porn need to be held accountable,” Republican senator Shelley Moore Capito said in a press release. “Our bill will make sure that even computer-generated deep fakes will not be allowed to stay online.”
“In recent years, we’ve witnessed a stunning increase in exploitative sexual material online, largely due to bad actors taking advantage of newer technologies like generative artificial intelligence. Many women and girls are forever harmed by these crimes, having to live with being victimized again and again,” Cruz said.
Samantha Cole
“If you don’t happen to be in a situation where a sitting member of Congress intervenes on your behalf, you get a closed door and stonewalled,” Cruz said at Tuesday’s press conference, as reported by The Hill. “That is not fair, and that is not right. It should not take an elected member of Congress intervening to have these despicable lies pulled down from Snapchat.”
Earlier this month, I wrote about the recent push for legislation that addresses deepfakes, and the potential complications of taking a platform-liability approach toward addressing the harms caused by AI-generated non-consensual images. In 2018, Cruz was a co-sponsor and vocal supporter of FOSTA-SESTA, a bill with the stated intention of preventing trafficking but that has had catastrophic effects on sexual speech and education online—because many platforms preemptively took a hyper-cautious approach and banned anything that could be construed as violating the law.
