President Donald Trump has now signed into law the Take It Down Act, a measure designed to address the spread of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including increasingly prevalent AI-generated deepfakes.
While the legislation is being celebrated by both major parties as a victory for online safety, particularly for children and victims of abuse, it has also raised concerns about the potential for overreach, selective enforcement, and the erosion of free speech under the guise of digital protection, particularly because of the broad wording of the bill.
The law’s most prominent advocate within the administration has been First Lady Melania Trump, who campaigned heavily for its passage and made rare public appearances to promote it. During the Rose Garden signing ceremony, President Trump invited her to add her signature beneath his, an unusual but symbolic gesture that underscored her role in pushing the legislation forward.
“This legislation is a powerful step forward in our efforts to ensure that every American, especially young people, can feel better protected from their image or identity being abused,” Mrs Trump said. In her remarks, she repeated her criticism of AI and social media, calling them “the digital candy for the next generation,” and warned that these technologies “can be weaponized, shaped beliefs, and sadly affect emotions and even be deadly.”
President Trump, for his part, appeared to dismiss constitutional concerns. “People talked about all sorts of First Amendment, Second Amendment. They talked about any amendment they could make up, and we got it through because of some very brave people,” he said.
Earlier in the year, during his March 4 address to Congress, Trump had signaled his intent to sign the bill. “The Senate passed the Take It Down Act…Once it passes the House, I look forward to signing that bill into law. And I’m going to use that bill for myself too if you don’t mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody.”
While made in jest, the remark pointed to an unresolved issue: how this law will be enforced, and who will benefit most from it.
There is no denying the harm caused by NCII. Victims often struggle to remove intimate images, whether real or AI-generated, while the content continues to spread. The Take It Down Act requires websites to remove flagged content within 48 hours of a complaint. But, just like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), platforms have little way of determining if a complaint is legitimate or being used as a censorship mechanism.
That timeline is designed to offer swift recourse to victims. However, the law’s broad wording leaves its applications open to interpretation.
The bill defines a violation as involving an “identifiable individual” engaged in “sexually explicit conduct,” without offering a clear or narrow definition of what that conduct entails. This vagueness creates a gray area that could easily be used to suppress satire, parody, or even critical political speech.
Hellbound and Down 