The bill has already passed the Senate, and its sponsors include Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
This bill does have strong bipartisan support. In fact, Cruz is partnering with Klobuchar to push the House to pass the legislation before the end of the week.
"This issue is too important to ignore," Klobuchar said of the bill, which passed the Senate unanimously earlier this month. "The fact that we're able to do this together is kind of a miracle in a very polarized time. But this cause is really, really important. "
Klobuchar joined Cruz at a Zoom press conference to promote their bill, the Take it Down Act.
"We are seeing more and more individuals using AI to create a deepfake image or a deepfake video of a real person, typically using innocent pictures from social media," Cruz said. "It is a problem of nonconsensual intimate images."
Texan Samantha McCoy joined the call for the House to pass the bill. While in college, she was stalked, raped, and then the attacker posted the sexual assault online.
"Had this legislation been in place at the time of my case," McCoy said. "I would not have experienced the constant and repeated pain as the video of the attack would have been promptly removed, significantly reducing the chances of wider circulation on these platforms. "
Another Texan, Elliston Berry from Aledo, was on the call to promote the bill. She was 14 years old when a classmate posted fake nude photographs of her online and shared them with her classmates.
"I am a victim," she said. "This affected me terribly. I locked myself in my room, my academics suffered and I was scared. "
She thanked both senators for their efforts to criminalize the behavior. The bill makes it a federal crime to post nonconsensual intimate images, real or AI-generated. Violators face two years in prison. The bill also forces online platforms to remove the content within 48 hours of being notified about the content.
"It does all this while protecting the constitutional right to free speech," Klobuchar said. "Something we both care about very much and working to protect Americans' privacy."
Senators are hopeful the bill will pass one of two ways. Either the House will take it up on an expedited basis this week, or it will stay attached to the larger House funding bill. Then, it will go to President Joe Biden for his signature.
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