President Trump to sign Take It Down Act to help victims of deepfake porn
ALEDO, Texas (Nexstar) — Elliston Berry's life changed just a couple of months into her high school career when a classmate decided to take photos from her social media page and generate fake pornographic images of her, known as deepfakes.
Elliston's mom, Anna McAdams, recalls the moment her 14-year-old daughter discovered the images were circulating around social media.
'Coming to our room crying going, 'Mom you won't believe what's happening,'' McAdams said. 'We really watched her go into a shell, kind of go inside herself. She got off social media completely. We saw her withdraw.'
That was in October 2023. This year, sparked by the mother-daughter duo, President Donald Trump said he will sign the Take It Down Act — a bill to criminalize those who publish non-consensual intimate images.
McAdams said she struggled to get help from the school and from the social media app, Snapchat, to get the images removed.
'We would go on there and just request please take these down. I'd leave my email, my phone number, and never heard back from them,' McAdams said.
Their story made its way to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's office, who authored the Take It Down Act. According to the senator, more than 90% of the victims in these cases are women. Cruz said he had to intervene with Snapchat to get Elliston's fake images removed from the app, and his bill looks to make it easier for victims to get the intimate images taken down in the future.
'It shouldn't take a sitting-U.S. Senator making a phone call to get that content down, and now as soon as the President signs the Take It Down Act into law, any victim will have a federal statutory right to ensure that content gets taken down,' Cruz said.
The senator explained his bill borrows the notice-and-takedown system from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. For example, social media companies have teams responsible for taking down content that is copyright infringement.
Cruz's bill would require tech companies to take down any non-consensual images within 48 hours of receiving a complaint from a victim. 'If this is a non-consensual intimate image, either a real one, or a deepfake, it doesn't matter, the victim has a right to get that content taken down,' Cruz said. It not only applies to AI-generated images, but any image that is intimate in nature and does not have the consent of the person depicted.
The Federal Trade Commission will have the authority to punish and force a tech platform to comply with the law.
McAdams and her daughter continue to advocate for victims. McAdams said she is currently working on a curriculum to teach schools and parents about the bill and how they can use in it in the future.
'This Take It Down Act is there and we can use. Law enforcement can use it,' McAdams said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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