The online safety bill 'Take It Down Act' is too broad and could lead to unintended censorship



The

Take It Down Act, a bill aimed at quickly removing non-consensual sexual images, including deep fakes, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 409 to 2, and now only awaits President Donald Trump's signature. There are both proponents of the bill, who say it will protect children, and opponents, who say it could lead to unfair censorship.

Take It Down Act heads to Trump's desk | The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/news/657632/take-it-down-act-passes-house-deepfakes

Trump's hasty Take It Down Act has “gaping flaws” that threaten encryption - Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/trumps-rush-to-stop-revenge-porn-and-ai-nudes-may-break-encryption/

Take It Down Act nears passage; critics warn Trump could use it against enemies - Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/congress-close-to-passing-deepfake-law-trump-said-he-wants-to-use-it-himself/

The Take It Down Act is a bill that would make it a crime to post non-consensual intimate images (NCII), whether real or computer-generated, and would require social media companies to implement systems to remove NCII within 48 hours of learning about its existence.

The bill is expected to help prevent the spread of malicious content such as sexual images of children, revenge porn, and deepfakes.

The bill has support from parents, youth advocacy groups and the tech industry. Google's Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker praised it as a 'big step forward to protect individuals from non-consensual imagery,' and photo-sharing site Snap also supported the bill. Internet Works, an organization whose members include mid-sized companies such as Discord, Etsy, Reddit and Roblox, said the bill 'will give victims the power to remove NCII from the internet, ending the cycle of harm perpetrated by those who publish heinous content.'



The bill has overwhelming support from lawmakers, with a vote of 409 to 2, but it has also been criticized for 'leading to unintended censorship.'

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the key point is that 'content must be removed within 48 hours.' This means that smaller platforms with fewer resources will have to act quickly to remove content, leaving them with no time to verify reports and potentially removing irrelevant content.

In addition, EFF points out that it is problematic that end-to-end encrypted services are not excluded from the bill. End-to-end encrypted services cannot know what users are sending, so they cannot delete content, let alone detect NCII in the first place. As an extreme example, EEF pointed out, 'Would such services be able to comply with deletion requests? Platforms might respond by abandoning encryption altogether so they can monitor content, turning private conversations into monitored spaces.'

Experts are divided on whether encryption services might be included in the bill, with Adam Billen of AI consulting firm Encode saying, 'The bill applies to services that publish content, and our interpretation is that it doesn't apply to encryption services or private messaging.'



There are many opposed opinions, and some media outlets have pointed out that President Trump made the following comment, which drew laughter from the audience: 'I look forward to signing this bill into law. If you don't mind, I will use this bill myself, because no one on the internet is treated worse than me,' and have gone so far as to say that 'President Trump will be invoking the law simply because he has been treated worse himself.'

One of the two Republicans who voted against the bill, Rep. Thomas Massie, said he 'feel[s] this bill is open to abuse and will have unintended consequences.'




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