CDT and Civil Society Partners Urge Changes to the TAKE IT DOWN Act to Protect Users’ Rights

Today, CDT led civil society partners in urging the Senate to make needed changes to the TAKE IT DOWN Act to both help victims of the nonconsensual disclosure of intimate imagery (NDII) and protect users’ privacy and free expression rights. Joined by Authors Guild, Demand Progress Action, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Freedom of the Press Foundation, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge, Restore The Fourth, SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, TechFreedom, and Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the letter makes clear that while the nonconsensual disclosure of both real and AI-generated intimate imagery is a profoundly harmful act and a violation of victims’ privacy and autonomy, changes to the bill are needed to prevent censorship of speech that is not NDII and protect users who rely on encrypted services.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act would create a federal offense for the nonconsensual disclosure of both real and AI-generated intimate imagery, alongside a novel, FTC-enforced notice-and-takedown mechanism for NDII. As CDT has previously written, the TAKE IT DOWN Act intends to address an important gap in existing takedown authority under the DMCA. In its current form, however, it poses an unacceptable risk of censoring legal and constitutionally protected user speech that is not NDII and creates an existential threat to encrypted platforms.

Read the full letter here.