Revenge porn is now illegal in the United States after President Donald Trump, alongside First Lady Melania Trump, signed a bipartisan bill, the Take It Down Act, that effectively bans nonconsensual sharing of intimate imagery.
“You want to sign your name? C’mon, sign it anyway. She deserves to sign it,” the president said to his wife after he signed the bill. The first lady then symbolically signed the law.
The legislation, which Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) primarily spearheaded, received a big boost when Melania Trump backed it this winter, and it subsequently passed both houses of Congress nearly unanimously.
The law criminalizes virtually all nonconsensual sharing of someone else’s intimate imagery, as well as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create sexual imagery of someone’s likeness against their will. Violators face a fine or up to two years in prison. It also requires social media platforms to develop plans to remove such imagery within 48 hours of requests being submitted and makes them subject to tens of thousands of dollars of fines if they do not do so.
The legislation is written in a very broad way, sidestepping issues of intent or impact that were previously included in similar bills, which has spurred some concerns from internet freedom and free speech advocates. As of now, though, no major legal challenge has emerged.
