NBC 5 DFW

By Noreen O’Donnell

For the first time, a new law makes it a federal crime not only to post sexually explicit images online without consent, but also ones generated by artificial intelligence.

For the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, that's key to confronting an exploding problem. 

The center’s CyberTipline -- for reports of all kinds of online child sexual abuse -- saw a jaw-dropping 1,325% increase in ones involving generative AI last year. The number jumped from 4,700 reports in 2023 to 67,000 last year.

“This is a tremendous start, the first bill to acknowledge the harms that AI can do when it's in the hands of offenders who want to exploit and abuse children,” said Yiota Souras, the center’s chief legal officer. “So it’s a tremendous step to have a federal law that is acknowledging that and really starting to address this new form of exploitation."

The Take It Down Act won broad support among lawmakers from both parties and from advocates for children and adults who have been victims of sextortion and other online attacks. Violators can be imprisoned or fined.

First lady Melania Trump promoted the bill at a round table on Capitol Hill in March.

“It’s heartbreaking to witness young teens, especially girls, grappling with the overwhelming challenges posed by malicious online content, like deepfakes,” she said then. “This toxic environment can be severely damaging.”

The measure also criminalizes threats to publish such images of both children and adults, whether to intimidate, coerce or extort someone or to cause distress.

“When we talk about children, of course, there's no ability to consent to this type of abuse or this type of imagery,” Souras said.

Here’s a look at what the bill says and how it is intended to protect anyone from being victimized by images online.

What does the Take It Down Act do?

As the name implies, the law’s focus is to get sexually exploitive images taken off the internet. It requires that online platforms remove them within 48 hours of receiving a complaint and says platforms also must make an attempt to take down copies. 

The bill was sponsored in the Senate by Texas Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and in the House by Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida with other Republicans and Democrats.

Cruz introduced the bill after Elliston Berry from Aledo, Texas, sought his help getting Snapchat to remove an AI-generated deepfake created of her when she was 14. Snapchat now says it supports the law.

Cruz praised her relentless advocacy and that of Francesca Mani, a Westfield, New Jersey, student victimized by deepfake pornography; Breeze Liu, a California college student at the time who had explicit video of her posted on PornHub; and Brandon Guffey, a South Carolina lawmaker whose 17-year-old son died by suicide after becoming the victim of sexual extortion.

The law will be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.

“We hear so often from survivors that really what they want most is they want that content down,” Souras said. "They don't want their images online."

What kinds of images does the law apply to? 

The law applies to nonconsensual intimate visual depictions and takes its definition for those depictions and for sexually explicit content from ones in the federal code.

Many states already have similar bans in place.

AI-generated images, or what are called digital forgeries, that are "indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction" of an individual also fall under the law.

For children, the new law fills a legal gap, Souras said. Child pornography images are already considered criminal, but under the legal definition they must depict a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct, she said. Images that do not meet that specific definition but may still be inappropriate often are not criminalized, limiting the ability of law enforcement officers to take action, she said.

The strict legal definition also has curtailed the resources available to safeguard children, she said.

The new law criminalizes images of a child in nude and exploitative situations -- whether actual images or AI-generated ones -- and will enable police and others to get involved before further exploitation occurs, she said. It will also provide resources for children who are exploited by the publication of, or threat to publish, such images, she said.

When does the law take effect?

The criminalization of posting sexually explicit images without consent goes into effect immediately.

In addition, websites and social media sites have a year from when the bill was signed to create a method through which people can ask that intimate images posted without their consent be removed.

The method must be clear and easy to find by any user, Souras said.

“If they believe their content, their nude or exploitive image is on that site, they can very easily find a way to report that,” she said.

What else can you do?

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children offers a free service offering help in removing online nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit photos and videos taken before someone turned 18.

It's also called Take It Down, and the website provides specific instructions on how to seek assistance.

For those over 18, Stop Non-consensual Intimate Image Abuse or StopNCII offers a similar program.

Not everyone is a fan

Despite the broad support behind the act, there are objectors who say it could lead to censorship and abuse by people in power.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for example, says it could invite powerful people to pressure websites into removing content they dislike.

"The Take It Down Act seeks to speed up the removal of certain kinds of troubling online content, but lacks necessary safeguards to protect free expression, user privacy, and due process," it says.