Lawfare Daily: Digital Forgeries, Real Felonies: Inside the TAKE IT DOWN Act
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 6 May 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The TAKE IT DOWN Act is the first major U.S. federal law to squarely target non‑consensual intimate imagery (NCII) and to include a component requiring tech companies to act. Long handled via a patchwork of state laws, it criminalizes NCII at the federal level—both authentic images and AI-generated digital forgeries—and requires that platforms remove reported NCII within 48 hours of notification by a victim or victim's representative. TAKE IT DOWN passed with wide bipartisan support—unanimously in the Senate, and 409-2 in the House. Melania Trump championed it, and it is expected that President Trump will sign it. And yet, some of the cyber civil rights organizations that have led the fight to mitigate the harms of NCII over many years have serious reservations about the bill as passed. Why?
Lawfare Contributing Editor Renée DiResta sits down with Mary Anne Franks, President and Legislative & Technology Policy Director at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, and Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor in Intellectual Property, Technology, and Civil Rights Law at the George Washington Law School; Becca Branum, Deputy Director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology; and Adam Conner, Vice President, Technology Policy at the Center for American Progress to unpack what the bill does, why it suddenly cruised through on a rare bipartisan wave of support, and whether its sweeping takedown mandate will protect victims or chill lawful speech. This is a nuanced discussion; some of the guests support specific aspects of the bill, while disagreeing about the implementation of others. Expect clear explanations, constructive disagreement, and practical takeaways for understanding this important piece of legislation.
More resources:
- TAKE IT DOWN Act Legislative Summary and Text
- Becca Branum and Tom Bowman's letter urging changes to TAKE IT DOWN prior to passage
- Cyber Civil Rights Initiative
- Senate press release upon House signing, including list of 120 supporting organizations
To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.4 | To access an ad-free version of the Lawfare podcast, become a material supporter of Lawfare at |
| 0:11.5 | patreon.com slash lawfare. That's patreon.com slash lawfare. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out Lawfare's other podcast offerings, Rational Security, Chatter, Lawfare No Bull, |
| 0:26.9 | and The Aftermath. |
| 0:31.8 | Hello, this is Danny Robbins, creator of the hit podcast and TV series Uncanny and West End Play 222 a ghost story, |
| 0:39.2 | letting you know about something new and spooky that I'm doing. |
| 0:42.9 | Fright Night at the Royal Albert Hall. |
| 0:45.5 | On 30th of October, I'll be hosting a night of chilling ghost stories with a live orchestra |
| 0:50.8 | at this most iconic and allegedly haunted venue. |
| 0:55.1 | Tickets are on sale now. |
| 0:59.7 | Just search Fright Knight, Royal Albert Hall, and join me, if you dare. |
| 1:08.9 | And so inadvertently, I assume, this bill actually wouldn't apply to deepfakes. That's one. |
| 1:15.4 | So that seems like a really big problem for under inclusivity. And it does apply to all kinds of nonconcilial visual depictions that are not, in fact, what we would define as NCI according to the rest of the criminal statute. So those seem like |
| 1:20.4 | really, really big problems. It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Renee Duresta, contributing editor |
| 1:25.9 | here at Lawfare, an associate research professor |
| 1:28.1 | at Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. With us are Marianne Franks, |
| 1:33.4 | president and legislative and technology policy director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative |
| 1:37.6 | and professor at George Washington Law School. Becca Barnum, deputy director of the Free |
| 1:42.8 | Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, |
| 1:46.6 | and Adam Connor, vice president of technology policy at the Center for American Progress. |
| 1:52.8 | Something I'm concerned about, and I think it's worth paying attention to, is this model getting exported to other kinds of contents, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.