I believe what EFF and Mike Masnick have to say about it: it's the most forseeably abusable internet censorship law (so far), and it's a crying shame HN isn't confident enough to look past the good intention of it to recognize that.
How have DMCA takedowns gone? How many upstanding developers have been nuked, without recourse, by some invalid or malevolent false report? How many times over and over[0] has HN loudly lamented the DMCA takedowns, decried how awful it is to have state censorship—and one without any meaningful adversarial process?
Well, here we are again: "The takedown provision also lacks critical safeguards against frivolous or bad-faith takedown requests".
If courts don't strike this down, this might end up becoming DMCA for the whole of society. It'll certainly be used by politicians to silence critics. It'll be overrun by trolls. You'll see the results, and you'll hate them.
> "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.”"
I fully agree, but this is not exactly a principled community and it is controlled and managed by interests that have censorious authoritarian tendencies when it comes to discussion of meaningful things like this.
The bill does have a nullifying logical flaw in it though for purposes of defense, but I also don’t think that enforcement is really the point of the law. It is very much more likely that feigned intimidation and acquiescence are the intended purpose, i.e., making the currently still painless violation of rights the easiest route for entities to follow.
It has been the MO to undermine, infiltrate, and subvert the fundamental laws in the USA that restrict the government and authoritarians from infringing on the inalienable, God given rights of the people for many decades now.
> How many times over and over[0] has HN loudly lamented the DMCA takedowns, decried how awful it is to have state censorship—and one without any meaningful adversarial process?
DMCA does have an adversarial process. You're more likely thinking of e.g. YouTube's automatic DMCA-like process.
That process means fuck all because the providers who honor DMCA takedowns often do so instantly, but basically say “you can never host this content here again, ever” and don’t give any fucks about whatever stupid appeal process you do. I had Heroku take down my business with zero notice due to a malicious dmca and did exactly this. They offered zero paths other than “get a different provider”. They also disabled my entire account and all of my sites, not just the allegedly offending site. They refused to even respond to any further inquiries on the matter
The incentives are structured to make immediate takedown the path of least resistance. Yes, in theory, they can do otherwise; why would they spend money and effort doing otherwise?
I'd never heard of this act [1], and the article frames it in a way that is not especially informative, though they have an excellent page on it here. [2] The law is being passed with complete unanimity in all houses (409-2 in the House, unanimous in the Senate), which is a rarity in modern times. Quoting the EFF as well as why they are opposed to it:
- "The takedown provision applies to a much broader category of content—potentially any images involving intimate or sexual content—than the narrower NCII definitions found elsewhere in the bill. The takedown provision also lacks critical safeguards against frivolous or bad-faith takedown requests. Lawful content—including satire, journalism, and political speech—could be wrongly censored."
So sexual or intimate themed memes which use realistic looking imagery may end up being able to be taken down. I also find myself disagreeing with the EFF here in spite of generally being a tremendous supporter of their work. In particular their main argument is that there are existing laws which work for this issue, without introducing new potentially abusable legislation:
- "If a deepfake is used for criminal purposes, then criminal laws will apply. If a deepfake is used to pressure someone to pay money to have it suppressed or destroyed, extortion laws would apply. For any situations in which deepfakes were used to harass, harassment laws apply. There is no need to make new, specific laws about deepfakes in either of these situations."
But I think on this issue one should not need to suffer some form of measurable loss or suffering to want intimate/sexual images removed from a site, let alone then having to go through the legal system and file a lawsuit to achieve such.
Unless you have the ability to get the Supreme Court to hear your personal case, that doesn't apply at the state level. You'd still be subject to whatever your state decides is the law.
Well if recent experience has taught us anything, one can start to dox people and their families to influence their decisions in work and personal life like we have seen judges and prosecutors being treated, then bad actors can rely on this digital stochastic terrorism of the masses to intimidate. This article actually says states will have to adjust their laws to account for proving intent, in addition to the digital trail of evidence, so essentially someone has to admit to it, much like law enforcement in the USA cannot be compelled to present evidence of racial discrimination and is at the same time not required to keep stats on it, but the defense must prove racial discrimination in any case, so that as long as no one in law enforcement admits to it, it's a catch 22 where it cannot be proven. These are distinctions without difference from endorsing the behavior.
I agree. I generally support the EFF, but I disagree with them on this. I read through the bill and the language is very specific to revenge porn (although I’m not a lawyer). I think it would be very difficult for Trump or anyone else to abuse this law and use it for censorship.
I have friends who were the victim of revenge porn and I think this law would help them. I’m looking forward to this becoming a law.
It's political criticism of public figures protected by the First Amendment. It's also arguably sexual, so risk averse managers are going to execute a takedown for it. Ergo, an effective means for political censorship.
Aaron Swartz showed us why we have to fight back against these laws. He has spun so much in his grave this week, you’d think he’s trying to invent a new power source.
I understand the horrors and so called purpose of this new act is trying to address, but the genie is out of the stable diffusion and successors bottle.
Just this weekend, Trump signed an executive order declaring and celebrating World Intellectual Property Day [0], the kind of day IIPA and DMCA would have their lovechild conceived, while creepy uncles ACTA, TPP, TRIPS, and SOPA/PIPA lurked and maybe even watched in the attic.
The TAKE IT DOWN Act fits right in with this family reunion, handing those in power another tool to censor the internet under the guise of protecting "intimate images." Its vague net is so wide, it’ll have even more platforms spooked into nuking fair use or satire just to dodge legal heat. It’s no coincidence that censorship go hand in hand with IP laws, control the content, monitor what people are submitting. This is exactly why people are building distributed tech like IPFS or ActivityPub and federated networks to keep information flowing, not locked behind government filters or takedown ultimatums.
Before you know it, it will be obscene to disagree with those in charge.
Circumvention and circumvention tools are prohibited regardless of whether there is any underlying infringement, e.g. preventing an excerpt from being taken for the purpose of criticism. In general, fair use is required to square copyright with free speech, but circumvention for the purposes of fair use is prohibited.
More than that, it prohibits you from telling someone how to circumvent DRM, even if the purpose of doing so is just to, say, watch a movie they legally purchased on the device of your choice.
Banning secret numbers is dumb, but it's also the part of the law which is the most completely ineffective. Do you think you can find a copy of DeCSS on the internet? Of course you can.
The actual problem is the fair use problem, because it prevents you from e.g. creating a third party Netflix or Twitter client without the corporation's approval. Which in turn forces you to use their app and puts them in control of recommendations, keeps you within a walled garden instead of exposing you to other voices, etc. It's a mechanism to monopolize the marketplace of ideas.
Of course, Apple et al have turned this against the creators in order to extract their vig, which is a related problem.
Courts have never equated code with speech in such a way that it’s protected the same way as, say, political speech. People have been making the argument that “code is speech” (without understanding that not all speech is treated alike by our legal system) since DMCA was still being drafted 20+ years ago, but the legal system has never seen it that way.
> the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that software source code was speech protected by the First Amendment and that the government's regulations preventing its publication were unconstitutional.
This reply doesn't seem responsive to the issue. It's not just whether you can censor someone from publishing code -- that's a separate problem. It's whether the law can prohibit circumvention even when the copying is fair use -- or when the same technological protection measure is locking away works in the public domain.
We’re talking about freedom of speech here, so First Amendment law is on point. There’s no other mechanism in our legal system than the Constitution that would prevent DMCA, including its anti-circumvention provisions, from having full force and effect.
Similarly, absent some Constitutional protection, states can restrict who can purchase lock picks.
The DeCSS case actually went to court (Bunner case), though it wasn’t about the T-shirt. It was a civil case based on trade secret law, not DMCA. The trial court assumed that sharing a trade secret without the permission of the secret’s owner is unlawful. That assumption wasn’t challenged.
That law is consistent with trade secret law in general. The First Amendment does not require trade secrets to lose all protection. If it did, you could freely disclose your own employer’s secrets without penalty.
It obviously doesn't, because the constitution is by definition whatever the supreme court says it is, yet by assumption the law in question hasn't been tossed. However, notice that the GP said "freedom of speech" and not the first amendment. Perhaps they understand the former to be more expansive than the latter.
Indeed. But to be fair, if it’s framed as "protecting the vulnerable" — for example, as a tool to prevent hate speech — liberals would likely support it as well. Or you can always use the classic catch-all: "protecting children from online predators." If it grants politicians more power, it’s almost always useful to them. It's rare for them to believe the government should not have more authority. It’s really just a matter of framing it the right way.
"...he would use the law to censor his critics." The most legitmate and most legally protected speech is political speech. This cannot possibly be legal.
Are we ignoring the fact that deepfakes, while despicable, are protected expression the same way that hand-drawn caricature cartoons that depict their subjects in an unflattering light are?
So what? Is satire that can't immediately be identified as such no longer allowed? Since when does an expression have to be "clearly fiction" to be protected speech?
I can't identify where EFFs concerns are coming from. There's a specific limitation of liability for online platforms and the entire process appears to be complaint driven and requires quite a bit of evidence from the complaintant.
What actually concerns me in this bill?
> (B) INVOLVING MINORS.—Except as provided in subparagraph (C), it shall be unlawful for any person, in interstate or foreign commerce, to use an interactive computer service to knowingly publish a digital forgery of an identifiable individual who is a minor with intent to—
> “(i) abuse, humiliate, harass, or degrade the minor; or
> “(ii) arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.
> “(C) EXCEPTIONS.—Subparagraphs (A) and (B) shall not apply to—
> “(i) a lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of—
> “(I) a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State; or
> “(II) an intelligence agency of the United States;
The scenarios envisioned in the way the bill is written don't actually apply sanely to how the Internet works. Anyone can send any number of (valid or not) reports to any service provider. That service provider then has to somehow decide if every one of those reports fits the definitions of an intimate visual depiction, and, if so, take it down. There's nothing preventing someone from making fraudulent claims, nor any punishment for doing so. The requirements in Section (3)(a)(1)(B) are trivial to automate ("Hi, my name is So-and-so. The image at URL is an intimate image of me posted without my consent. For reference, URL is a picture of me that confirms that URL contains a picture of me. My email address is example@invalid.com." satisfies the requirements of that section, at a glance).
The limitation on liability is only saying they're not responsible for the consequences of taking something down, not for the consequences of leaving something up.
That, plus the FTC being able to sue any company for the inevitable false negatives that will happen means that the only reasonable response to takedown requests is to be extremely cautious about rejecting them. It'll inevitably be abused for spurious takedowns way more than the DMCA already is.
> fits the definitions of an intimate visual depiction,
Hardly seems difficult. I think a lot of services have TOSes which cover this type of content. The text of the bill also plainly defines what is covered.
> are trivial to automate
And removal is trivial to automate. I'm pretty sure providers already have systems which cover this case. Those that don't likely don't allow posting of pornographic material whether it's consensual or not.
> they're not responsible for the consequences of taking something down
So the market for "intimate depictions" got a little harder to participate in. This is a strange hill to fight over.
> It'll inevitably be abused for spurious takedowns
Of pornographic content. The law is pretty well confined to "visual depictions." I can see your argument on it's technical merits I just can't rationalize it into the real world other than for some absurdly narrow cases.
> How does your trivial removal automation distinguish between 'intimate depictions' and 'political imagery I dislike'?
It doesn't; however, you would immediately have a civil case against the person and/or their representative for their false claim. That's not spelled out in the bill but it should be obvious.
> The whole point of this is discussion is that this is going to be used to censor everything
That's the claim. You may accept it without objection. I simply do not. Now I'm offering a slightly modified discussion. Is that alright?
> not just 'intimate visual depictions'.
I'm sure you would agree that any automation would obviously only be able to challenge images. This does create a vulnerability to be sure, but I do not agree that it automatically creates the wholesale censorship of political speech that you or the EFF envisions here.
It also makes efforts at being scoped only to sites which rely on user generated content effectively limiting it to social media platforms and certain types of adult content websites. Due to their nature it's already likely that these social media platforms do _not_ allow adult content on their websites and have well developed mechanisms to handle this precise problem.
The bill could be refined for civil liberties sake; however, in it's current state, I fail to see the extreme danger of it.
>however, you would immediately have a civil case against the person and/or their representative for their false claim. That's not spelled out in the bill but it should be obvious.
Wow. Not sure if this is ludicrously bad faith or just ludicrously naive/ignorant/unthinking but it's ludicrous either way. Plenty enough to nullify every other thing you attempt to say on the topic.
> It doesn't; however, you would immediately have a civil case against the person and/or their representative for their false claim.
Great. So a motivated bad actor can send out 10,000,000 bogus takedowns for images promoting political positions and people they disagree with, and they have to be taken down immediately, and then all 10 million people affected have to individually figure out who the hell actually submitted the takedowns, and have enough money for lawyers, and enough time to engage in a civil suit, and in the end they might get money, if they can somehow prove that taking down those specific images damaged them personally, rather than just a cause they believe in, but will they get the images restored?
This just smacks of obliviousness and being woefully out of touch, even before we get to
> That's not spelled out in the bill but it should be obvious.
...which almost makes it sound like this whole thing is just an elaborate troll.
> That, plus the FTC being able to sue any company for the inevitable false negatives that will happen means that the only reasonable response to takedown requests is to be extremely cautious about rejecting them.
... or to finally hire enough moderators to make competent judgements to avoid getting a counter lawsuit for restricting free speech.
The limitation of liability is itself concerning because it means platforms won't care about fake takedowns. This law doesn't even have the counter notice process that DMCA has. You say take down X, they take it down, they're not liable. There's no appeal process that I see.
> IN GENERAL.—The term “covered platform” means a website, online service, online application, or mobile application—
> (i) that serves the public; and
> (ii) (I) that primarily provides a forum for user-generated content, including messages, videos, images, games, and audio files; or
> (II) for which it is in the regular course of trade or business of the website, online service, online application, or mobile application to publish, curate, host, or make available content of nonconsensual intimate visual depictions.
If you publish the content on your own website or on certain public websites you don't even have to respond to these requests. You do; however, open yourself to criminal and civil liability for publicly hosting any nonconseual visual images. Your provider is also excluded from service and cannot legally be compelled to participate in their removal.
This sounds like any online forum of any kind, commercial or hobbyist, which allows uploading images. I guess you could call that a narrow category, but I wouldn't.
I believe what EFF and Mike Masnick have to say about it: it's the most forseeably abusable internet censorship law (so far), and it's a crying shame HN isn't confident enough to look past the good intention of it to recognize that.
How have DMCA takedowns gone? How many upstanding developers have been nuked, without recourse, by some invalid or malevolent false report? How many times over and over[0] has HN loudly lamented the DMCA takedowns, decried how awful it is to have state censorship—and one without any meaningful adversarial process?
Well, here we are again: "The takedown provision also lacks critical safeguards against frivolous or bad-faith takedown requests".
If courts don't strike this down, this might end up becoming DMCA for the whole of society. It'll certainly be used by politicians to silence critics. It'll be overrun by trolls. You'll see the results, and you'll hate them.
> "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.”"
[0] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dmca&type=all
I fully agree, but this is not exactly a principled community and it is controlled and managed by interests that have censorious authoritarian tendencies when it comes to discussion of meaningful things like this.
The bill does have a nullifying logical flaw in it though for purposes of defense, but I also don’t think that enforcement is really the point of the law. It is very much more likely that feigned intimidation and acquiescence are the intended purpose, i.e., making the currently still painless violation of rights the easiest route for entities to follow.
It has been the MO to undermine, infiltrate, and subvert the fundamental laws in the USA that restrict the government and authoritarians from infringing on the inalienable, God given rights of the people for many decades now.
> How many times over and over[0] has HN loudly lamented the DMCA takedowns, decried how awful it is to have state censorship—and one without any meaningful adversarial process?
DMCA does have an adversarial process. You're more likely thinking of e.g. YouTube's automatic DMCA-like process.
> DMCA does have an adversarial process. You're more likely thinking of e.g. YouTube's automatic DMCA-like process.
But that adversarial process has timelines that require removal for a minimum of ten days. Which is plenty of time to cause damage.
That process means fuck all because the providers who honor DMCA takedowns often do so instantly, but basically say “you can never host this content here again, ever” and don’t give any fucks about whatever stupid appeal process you do. I had Heroku take down my business with zero notice due to a malicious dmca and did exactly this. They offered zero paths other than “get a different provider”. They also disabled my entire account and all of my sites, not just the allegedly offending site. They refused to even respond to any further inquiries on the matter
This is a decision of Heroku, not something required of the DMCA
The incentives are structured to make immediate takedown the path of least resistance. Yes, in theory, they can do otherwise; why would they spend money and effort doing otherwise?
I'd never heard of this act [1], and the article frames it in a way that is not especially informative, though they have an excellent page on it here. [2] The law is being passed with complete unanimity in all houses (409-2 in the House, unanimous in the Senate), which is a rarity in modern times. Quoting the EFF as well as why they are opposed to it:
- "The takedown provision applies to a much broader category of content—potentially any images involving intimate or sexual content—than the narrower NCII definitions found elsewhere in the bill. The takedown provision also lacks critical safeguards against frivolous or bad-faith takedown requests. Lawful content—including satire, journalism, and political speech—could be wrongly censored."
So sexual or intimate themed memes which use realistic looking imagery may end up being able to be taken down. I also find myself disagreeing with the EFF here in spite of generally being a tremendous supporter of their work. In particular their main argument is that there are existing laws which work for this issue, without introducing new potentially abusable legislation:
- "If a deepfake is used for criminal purposes, then criminal laws will apply. If a deepfake is used to pressure someone to pay money to have it suppressed or destroyed, extortion laws would apply. For any situations in which deepfakes were used to harass, harassment laws apply. There is no need to make new, specific laws about deepfakes in either of these situations."
But I think on this issue one should not need to suffer some form of measurable loss or suffering to want intimate/sexual images removed from a site, let alone then having to go through the legal system and file a lawsuit to achieve such.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAKE_IT_DOWN_Act
[2] - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/congress-passes-take-i...
Yeah, aren't US harassment laws really weak? It seems like if you could successfully sue over online harassment people would have already done it.
Recent Supreme Court case makes it a free for all to harass with thousands of messages, you only have to say you were not serious and claim it was free speech. https://www.cpr.org/2023/06/27/us-supreme-court-opinion-colo...
Unless you have the ability to get the Supreme Court to hear your personal case, that doesn't apply at the state level. You'd still be subject to whatever your state decides is the law.
Well if recent experience has taught us anything, one can start to dox people and their families to influence their decisions in work and personal life like we have seen judges and prosecutors being treated, then bad actors can rely on this digital stochastic terrorism of the masses to intimidate. This article actually says states will have to adjust their laws to account for proving intent, in addition to the digital trail of evidence, so essentially someone has to admit to it, much like law enforcement in the USA cannot be compelled to present evidence of racial discrimination and is at the same time not required to keep stats on it, but the defense must prove racial discrimination in any case, so that as long as no one in law enforcement admits to it, it's a catch 22 where it cannot be proven. These are distinctions without difference from endorsing the behavior.
It's called a higher court for a reason.
I agree. I generally support the EFF, but I disagree with them on this. I read through the bill and the language is very specific to revenge porn (although I’m not a lawyer). I think it would be very difficult for Trump or anyone else to abuse this law and use it for censorship.
I have friends who were the victim of revenge porn and I think this law would help them. I’m looking forward to this becoming a law.
[flagged]
Help me with the relevance?
It's political criticism of public figures protected by the First Amendment. It's also arguably sexual, so risk averse managers are going to execute a takedown for it. Ergo, an effective means for political censorship.
What about Musk kissing Trumps feet? (Or the other way around? Can't remember.)
Aaron Swartz showed us why we have to fight back against these laws. He has spun so much in his grave this week, you’d think he’s trying to invent a new power source.
I understand the horrors and so called purpose of this new act is trying to address, but the genie is out of the stable diffusion and successors bottle.
Just this weekend, Trump signed an executive order declaring and celebrating World Intellectual Property Day [0], the kind of day IIPA and DMCA would have their lovechild conceived, while creepy uncles ACTA, TPP, TRIPS, and SOPA/PIPA lurked and maybe even watched in the attic.
The TAKE IT DOWN Act fits right in with this family reunion, handing those in power another tool to censor the internet under the guise of protecting "intimate images." Its vague net is so wide, it’ll have even more platforms spooked into nuking fair use or satire just to dodge legal heat. It’s no coincidence that censorship go hand in hand with IP laws, control the content, monitor what people are submitting. This is exactly why people are building distributed tech like IPFS or ActivityPub and federated networks to keep information flowing, not locked behind government filters or takedown ultimatums.
Before you know it, it will be obscene to disagree with those in charge.
[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/worl...
Hm. If in practice it ends up being as over-broad as the eff seems to expect, might it get tossed on the grounds that it abridges freedom of speech?
DMCA 1201 violates freedom of speech, but it's backed by corrupt beneficiaries, so it was never tossed. This one is comparable.
Attorney here! (Not your attorney, not legal advice.)
Why do you believe it runs afoul of the First Amendment?
Circumvention and circumvention tools are prohibited regardless of whether there is any underlying infringement, e.g. preventing an excerpt from being taken for the purpose of criticism. In general, fair use is required to square copyright with free speech, but circumvention for the purposes of fair use is prohibited.
More than that, it prohibits you from telling someone how to circumvent DRM, even if the purpose of doing so is just to, say, watch a movie they legally purchased on the device of your choice.
Banning secret numbers is dumb, but it's also the part of the law which is the most completely ineffective. Do you think you can find a copy of DeCSS on the internet? Of course you can.
The actual problem is the fair use problem, because it prevents you from e.g. creating a third party Netflix or Twitter client without the corporation's approval. Which in turn forces you to use their app and puts them in control of recommendations, keeps you within a walled garden instead of exposing you to other voices, etc. It's a mechanism to monopolize the marketplace of ideas.
Of course, Apple et al have turned this against the creators in order to extract their vig, which is a related problem.
Courts have never equated code with speech in such a way that it’s protected the same way as, say, political speech. People have been making the argument that “code is speech” (without understanding that not all speech is treated alike by our legal system) since DMCA was still being drafted 20+ years ago, but the legal system has never seen it that way.
What about Bernstein v. United States?
> the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that software source code was speech protected by the First Amendment and that the government's regulations preventing its publication were unconstitutional.
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States
This reply doesn't seem responsive to the issue. It's not just whether you can censor someone from publishing code -- that's a separate problem. It's whether the law can prohibit circumvention even when the copying is fair use -- or when the same technological protection measure is locking away works in the public domain.
We’re talking about freedom of speech here, so First Amendment law is on point. There’s no other mechanism in our legal system than the Constitution that would prevent DMCA, including its anti-circumvention provisions, from having full force and effect.
Similarly, absent some Constitutional protection, states can restrict who can purchase lock picks.
The Constitution doesn't seem to be very respected these days, in either the Executive nor Congress these days.
https://www.wired.com/2000/08/court-to-address-decss-t-shirt...
The DeCSS case actually went to court (Bunner case), though it wasn’t about the T-shirt. It was a civil case based on trade secret law, not DMCA. The trial court assumed that sharing a trade secret without the permission of the secret’s owner is unlawful. That assumption wasn’t challenged.
That law is consistent with trade secret law in general. The First Amendment does not require trade secrets to lose all protection. If it did, you could freely disclose your own employer’s secrets without penalty.
Did Bunner work at the DVD Consortium? Can you freely discuss my employer's secrets without penalty?
> Can you freely discuss my employer's secrets without penalty?
Yes; in order for trade secrets to be protected, they have to be secret.
> Did Bunner work at the DVD Consortium?
I have no knowledge of this.
If you can, then Bunner should be able too.
It obviously doesn't, because the constitution is by definition whatever the supreme court says it is, yet by assumption the law in question hasn't been tossed. However, notice that the GP said "freedom of speech" and not the first amendment. Perhaps they understand the former to be more expansive than the latter.
Like most modern laws, if conservatives are able to bends it to theocratic authoritarian ends it will be upheld.
Indeed. But to be fair, if it’s framed as "protecting the vulnerable" — for example, as a tool to prevent hate speech — liberals would likely support it as well. Or you can always use the classic catch-all: "protecting children from online predators." If it grants politicians more power, it’s almost always useful to them. It's rare for them to believe the government should not have more authority. It’s really just a matter of framing it the right way.
I wouldn't bet the farm on that mattering, especially if it's a law that the powerful find "useful".
> might it get tossed on the grounds that it abridges freedom of speech?
yeah, when people got unlawfully sent to a prison in another country even though they were a US citizen law makers sprung into action (/s)
seems overly broad and can jail publishers of any content deemed inappropriate. eg melania nudes = el savadorian prison etc.
that video of donald sucking elon's toes probably counts.
Depressing. We are in for a rough ride for the next few years, at least.
Apparently it was nearly unanimous, with the only Nay votes being Republicans: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025104
Other articles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/us/politics/house-revenge... (https://archive.ph/GTSM2)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-take-it-down-act-vote-dee...
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/28/congress-moving-forward-...
Related:
Take It Down Act: A Flawed Attempt to Protect Victims That'll Lead to Censorship - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43296886 - March 2025 (38 comments)
The Take It Down Act isn't a law, it's a weapon - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43293573 - March 2025 (30 comments)
The "Take It Down" Act - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43274656 - March 2025 (99 comments)
they should've called it "shut it down". To go along with the meme.
The intolerant will always take advantage of the tolerant and force their intolerance at the first chance given.
"...he would use the law to censor his critics." The most legitmate and most legally protected speech is political speech. This cannot possibly be legal.
People keep saying it can't be legal as if he cares about legality.
A minute of silence for people who thought cancel culture lost the elections.
Fictional things can't lose elections, silly.
Are we ignoring the fact that deepfakes, while despicable, are protected expression the same way that hand-drawn caricature cartoons that depict their subjects in an unflattering light are?
There is no line.
a cartoon is clearly fiction. videos depicting real, notable people in real contexts can't be immediately dismissed as such.
So what? Is satire that can't immediately be identified as such no longer allowed? Since when does an expression have to be "clearly fiction" to be protected speech?
The state of California agrees with you, but many other US states explicitly criminalize drawn NSFW depictions...
Here's the text.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/146...
I can't identify where EFFs concerns are coming from. There's a specific limitation of liability for online platforms and the entire process appears to be complaint driven and requires quite a bit of evidence from the complaintant.
What actually concerns me in this bill?
> (B) INVOLVING MINORS.—Except as provided in subparagraph (C), it shall be unlawful for any person, in interstate or foreign commerce, to use an interactive computer service to knowingly publish a digital forgery of an identifiable individual who is a minor with intent to—
> “(i) abuse, humiliate, harass, or degrade the minor; or
> “(ii) arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.
> “(C) EXCEPTIONS.—Subparagraphs (A) and (B) shall not apply to—
> “(i) a lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of—
> “(I) a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State; or
> “(II) an intelligence agency of the United States;
Wut? Why do you need this? Are we the baddies?
The scenarios envisioned in the way the bill is written don't actually apply sanely to how the Internet works. Anyone can send any number of (valid or not) reports to any service provider. That service provider then has to somehow decide if every one of those reports fits the definitions of an intimate visual depiction, and, if so, take it down. There's nothing preventing someone from making fraudulent claims, nor any punishment for doing so. The requirements in Section (3)(a)(1)(B) are trivial to automate ("Hi, my name is So-and-so. The image at URL is an intimate image of me posted without my consent. For reference, URL is a picture of me that confirms that URL contains a picture of me. My email address is example@invalid.com." satisfies the requirements of that section, at a glance).
The limitation on liability is only saying they're not responsible for the consequences of taking something down, not for the consequences of leaving something up.
That, plus the FTC being able to sue any company for the inevitable false negatives that will happen means that the only reasonable response to takedown requests is to be extremely cautious about rejecting them. It'll inevitably be abused for spurious takedowns way more than the DMCA already is.
> fits the definitions of an intimate visual depiction,
Hardly seems difficult. I think a lot of services have TOSes which cover this type of content. The text of the bill also plainly defines what is covered.
> are trivial to automate
And removal is trivial to automate. I'm pretty sure providers already have systems which cover this case. Those that don't likely don't allow posting of pornographic material whether it's consensual or not.
> they're not responsible for the consequences of taking something down
So the market for "intimate depictions" got a little harder to participate in. This is a strange hill to fight over.
> It'll inevitably be abused for spurious takedowns
Of pornographic content. The law is pretty well confined to "visual depictions." I can see your argument on it's technical merits I just can't rationalize it into the real world other than for some absurdly narrow cases.
How does your trivial removal automation distinguish between 'intimate depictions' and 'political imagery I dislike'?
The whole point of this is discussion is that this is going to be used to censor everything, not just 'intimate visual depictions'.
> How does your trivial removal automation distinguish between 'intimate depictions' and 'political imagery I dislike'?
It doesn't; however, you would immediately have a civil case against the person and/or their representative for their false claim. That's not spelled out in the bill but it should be obvious.
> The whole point of this is discussion is that this is going to be used to censor everything
That's the claim. You may accept it without objection. I simply do not. Now I'm offering a slightly modified discussion. Is that alright?
> not just 'intimate visual depictions'.
I'm sure you would agree that any automation would obviously only be able to challenge images. This does create a vulnerability to be sure, but I do not agree that it automatically creates the wholesale censorship of political speech that you or the EFF envisions here.
It also makes efforts at being scoped only to sites which rely on user generated content effectively limiting it to social media platforms and certain types of adult content websites. Due to their nature it's already likely that these social media platforms do _not_ allow adult content on their websites and have well developed mechanisms to handle this precise problem.
The bill could be refined for civil liberties sake; however, in it's current state, I fail to see the extreme danger of it.
>however, you would immediately have a civil case against the person and/or their representative for their false claim. That's not spelled out in the bill but it should be obvious.
Wow. Not sure if this is ludicrously bad faith or just ludicrously naive/ignorant/unthinking but it's ludicrous either way. Plenty enough to nullify every other thing you attempt to say on the topic.
> It doesn't; however, you would immediately have a civil case against the person and/or their representative for their false claim.
Great. So a motivated bad actor can send out 10,000,000 bogus takedowns for images promoting political positions and people they disagree with, and they have to be taken down immediately, and then all 10 million people affected have to individually figure out who the hell actually submitted the takedowns, and have enough money for lawyers, and enough time to engage in a civil suit, and in the end they might get money, if they can somehow prove that taking down those specific images damaged them personally, rather than just a cause they believe in, but will they get the images restored?
This just smacks of obliviousness and being woefully out of touch, even before we get to
> That's not spelled out in the bill but it should be obvious.
...which almost makes it sound like this whole thing is just an elaborate troll.
> That, plus the FTC being able to sue any company for the inevitable false negatives that will happen means that the only reasonable response to takedown requests is to be extremely cautious about rejecting them.
... or to finally hire enough moderators to make competent judgements to avoid getting a counter lawsuit for restricting free speech.
The limitation of liability is itself concerning because it means platforms won't care about fake takedowns. This law doesn't even have the counter notice process that DMCA has. You say take down X, they take it down, they're not liable. There's no appeal process that I see.
It applies to a narrow category of providers.
> IN GENERAL.—The term “covered platform” means a website, online service, online application, or mobile application—
> (i) that serves the public; and
> (ii) (I) that primarily provides a forum for user-generated content, including messages, videos, images, games, and audio files; or
> (II) for which it is in the regular course of trade or business of the website, online service, online application, or mobile application to publish, curate, host, or make available content of nonconsensual intimate visual depictions.
If you publish the content on your own website or on certain public websites you don't even have to respond to these requests. You do; however, open yourself to criminal and civil liability for publicly hosting any nonconseual visual images. Your provider is also excluded from service and cannot legally be compelled to participate in their removal.
This sounds like any online forum of any kind, commercial or hobbyist, which allows uploading images. I guess you could call that a narrow category, but I wouldn't.
Sounds like something meant to allow the vice squad to post "selfies" when they're pretending to be kids?
What’s stopping someone from taking down this post of yours?
Assume they are a serial liar. Or that they are a political opponent with zero shame.
We need it so I don't file a takedown request against what you just posted because I disagree with it.
Sting operation maybe?
The article says the takedown section is much broader than other sections.
Wonderful! The neckbeard hammer draws near.
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