TAKE IT DOWN Act creates new NCII removal obligations

On May 19, 2025, President Trump signed the TAKE IT DOWN Act into law, establishing federal rules against non-consensual intimate images (NCII), including AI-generated 'deepfake' depictions of identifiable people. The law criminalizes knowingly publishing or threatening to publish such images and requires covered online platforms to create notice-and-removal procedures and to take down flagged NCII, and copies of it, within 48 hours of a valid request from a victim. Platforms have one year from enactment to implement compliant systems, with enforcement of the removal obligations assigned to the Federal Trade Commission.

Introduced by Senator Ted Cruz in 2024 and passed by near-unanimous votes in both chambers, the law directly affects user-generated-content sites like Reddit, which must build or expand mechanisms to handle takedown requests at scale. While supporters hailed it as a landmark protection against image-based abuse and AI exploitation, civil-liberties groups warned that the tight 48-hour window and broad notice requirements could pressure platforms into over-removal and raise free-speech and privacy concerns. For Reddit, compliance added new moderation and legal responsibilities atop its existing content-policy framework.