Trump Signs Controversial Law Targeting Nonconsensual Sexual Content

US President Donald Trump signed into rule authorities connected Monday nicknamed nan Take It Down Act, which requires platforms to region nonconsensual instances of “intimate ocular depiction” wrong 48 hours of receiving a request. Companies that return longer aliases don’t comply astatine each could beryllium taxable to penalties of astir $50,000 per violation.

The rule received support from tech firms for illustration Google, Meta, and Microsoft and will spell into effect wrong nan adjacent year. Enforcement will beryllium near up to nan Federal Trade Commission, which has nan powerfulness to penalize companies for what it deems unfair and deceptive business practices. Other countries, including India, person enacted akin regulations requiring swift removals of sexually definitive photos aliases deepfakes. Delays tin lead to contented spreading uncontrollably crossed nan web; Microsoft, for example, took months to enactment successful 1 high-profile case.

But free speech advocates are concerned that a deficiency of guardrails successful nan Take It Down Act could let bad actors to weaponize nan argumentation to unit tech companies to unjustly censor online content. The caller rule is modeled connected nan Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which requires net work providers to expeditiously region worldly that personification claims is infringing connected their copyright. Companies tin beryllium held financially liable for ignoring valid requests, which has motivated galore firms to err connected nan broadside of be aware and preemptively region contented earlier a copyright conflict has been resolved.

For years, fraudsters person abused nan DMCA takedown process to get contented censored for reasons that person nothing to do pinch copyright infringements. In immoderate cases, nan accusation is unflattering aliases belongs to manufacture competitors that they want to harm. The DMCA does see provisions that let fraudsters to beryllium held financially liable erstwhile they make mendacious claims. Last year, for example, Google secured a default judgment against 2 individuals accused of orchestrating a strategy to suppress competitors successful nan T-shirt manufacture by filing frivolous requests to region hundreds of thousands of hunt results.

Fraudsters who whitethorn person feared nan penalties of abusing DMCA could find Take It Down a little risky pathway. The Take It Down Act doesn’t see a robust deterrence provision, requiring only that takedown requestors workout “good faith,” without specifying penalties for acting successful bad faith. Unlike nan DMCA, nan caller rule besides doesn’t outline an appeals process for alleged perpetrators to situation what they see erroneous removals. Critics of nan regularisation opportunity it should person exempted definite content, including worldly that tin beryllium viewed arsenic being successful nan public’s liking to stay online.

Another interest is that nan 48-hour deadline specified successful nan Take It Down Act whitethorn limit really overmuch companies tin vet requests earlier making a determination astir whether to o.k. them. Free reside groups contend that could lead to nan erasure of contented good beyond nonconsensual “visually friendly depictions,” and induce maltreatment by nan aforesaid kinds of fraudsters who took advantage of nan DMCA.