Trump signs a bill to make posting 'revenge porn' a federal crime. He had the first lady sign, too

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump connected Monday signed into instrumentality the Take It Down Act, a measurement that imposes penalties for online intersexual exploitation that archetypal woman Melania Trump helped usher done Congress, and helium had her motion it, too, contempt what sounded similar a mild objection connected her part.

“C'mon, motion it anyway,” the president told his wife. “She deserves to motion it,” helium said.

After she added her signature, the president showed the papers bearing some of their names to the assemblage astatine the signing ceremonial successful the White House Rose Garden. Melania Trump's signature is simply symbolic due to the fact that archetypal ladies are not elected and person nary ceremonial relation successful the signing of legislation.

In March, Melania Trump utilized her archetypal nationalist quality since resuming the relation of archetypal woman to question to Capitol Hill to lobby House members to walk the measure pursuing its support by the Senate.

At a signing ceremony, she called the caller instrumentality a “national victory” that volition assistance support children from online exploitation, including done the usage of artificial quality to marque fake images.

“AI and societal media are the integer candy for the adjacent generation, saccharine addictive and engineered to person an interaction connected the cognitive improvement of our children,” she said. “But dissimilar sugar, these caller technologies tin beryllium weaponized, signifier beliefs and, sadly, impact emotions and adjacent beryllium deadly.”

The president said the proliferation of images made utilizing AI means that “countless women person been harassed with deepfakes and different explicit images distributed against their will.” He said what's happening is “just truthful horribly wrong.”

“Today, we're making it wholly illegal,” Trump said.

The measure makes it a national transgression to “knowingly publish” oregon endanger to people intimate images without a person’s consent, including AI-created “deepfakes.” Websites and societal media companies volition beryllium required to region specified worldly wrong 48 hours aft a unfortunate requests it. The platforms indispensable besides instrumentality steps to delete duplicate content.

Many states person already banned the dissemination of sexually explicit deepfakes oregon revenge porn, but the Take It Down Act is simply a uncommon illustration of national regulators imposing connected net companies.

The bill, sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., received overwhelming bipartisan enactment successful Congress, passing the House successful April by a 409-2 ballot and clearing the Senate by unanimous consent.

But the measurement isn't without critics. Free code advocates and integer rights groups accidental the measure is excessively wide and could pb to censorship of morganatic images, including ineligible pornography and LGBTQ content. Others accidental it could let the authorities to show backstage communications and undermine owed process.

The archetypal woman appeared astatine a Capitol Hill roundtable with lawmakers and young women who had explicit images of them enactment online, saying it was “heartbreaking” to spot what teenagers and particularly girls spell done aft this happens to them. She besides included a unfortunate among her guests for the president's code to a associated league of Congress the time aft that meeting.

After the House passed the bill, Melania Trump said the bipartisan ballot was a “powerful connection that we basal agreed successful protecting the dignity, privateness and information of our children.”

Her advocacy for the measure is simply a continuation of the Be Best run she started successful the president's archetypal term, focusing connected children's well-being, societal media usage and opioid abuse.

In his code to Congress successful March, the president said helium looked guardant to signing the bill.

“And I'm going to usage that measure for myself, too, if you don’t mind,” helium said, adding, that there's cipher who "gets treated worse than I bash online. Nobody.”