Oppose the Take It Down Act

The Take It Down Act (H. R. 633/ S. 146) tries to address an important problem - the posting of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) online. The bill consists of two parts: the first part focuses on the criminalization of the publication of NCII and the second contains a “notice and takedown” mechanism that gives platforms 48 hours to act on and remove reported NCII content.

The problem is in the second part of the bill, which does not adequately safeguard lawful speech and communications. That is, the notice and takedown mechanism:

• is overly broad in how it defines content that can be reported under this provision;
• contains no penalties for using this law in bad faith in order to censor and chill lawful speech;
• does not give platforms sufficient time to verify claims, which means many companies will feel pressured to quickly take down potentially lawful content and rely on automated filtering mechanisms, which are known to be problematic; and
• does not clearly exclude privacy-preserving platforms that provide services such as encrypted messaging and file storage/sharing, which means that these platforms might face increased pressure to monitor and chill their users’ communications.

This bill needs to be modified to exempt privacy-preserving platforms and to safeguard lawful speech. Demand your representatives oppose the Take It Down Act as currently written.