WCCO Radio

By Taylor Rivera

U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D- Minnesota) and Ted Cruz (R- Texas) are celebrating the passage their bipartisan bill that looks to crack down on explicit artificial intelligence images online.

The 'Take it Down' bill makes it illegal to post deep fake revenge pornography online and requires websites to remove those images within 48 hours.

The new bill will help victims like Molly Kelley of Otsego, Minnesota, who had a friend post a graphic AI video of her online.

"My initial shock turned horror when I learned that the same person had targeted about 85 other women, some of whom I know personally and all of whom had some connection to the offender," says Kelley. "When people hear about pornography made with deepfake technology, they think of high profile cases involving celebrities like Taylor Swift. I am proof that this can happen to anybody."

Senator Klobuchar says the issue is too important to ignore.

"It is estimated that one in 12 American adults have had some type of image distributed without their consent," Klobuchar explains. 49% of victims were stalked or harassed online by others who saw the images. And that's the horrific problem of this."

Leaders from both social media platforms and dating apps like Google, Meta, TikTok, and Bumble, have all shown support for the bill.

The bill makes it unlawful for a person to knowingly publish this kind of content on social media and explicitly makes deep fake content easier to prosecute.