Today, the president signed into law the Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks, known as the TAKE IT DOWN Act. We commend Congress for taking action and enacting legislation addressing the rapidly changing landscape of artificial intelligence, social media, and sexual exploitation.

Artificial intelligence has rapidly increased the ability for someone to recreate the likeness of an individual and depict them saying or doing things that never happened. Artificial likenesses are often referred to as deepfakes and can be used to exploit and humiliate people. Passed unanimously in the Senate and with 409 yeas in the House from bipartisan members, the TAKE IT DOWN Act makes it unlawful to knowingly publish a sexual or sexually explicit deepfake on social media and other online platforms. It also works to better support survivors and requires online platforms to remove these deepfakes and work to prevent copies within 48 hours of a request from someone targeted in this way.

As a church, we support regulations on artificial intelligence, call to “restrict or ban the use of deepfakes… for purposes of fraud, defamation, and sexual exploitation,” and support policies to regulate technology to protect vulnerable people from harmful content. Thistle Farms, an organization started by an Episcopal priest that is dedicated to helping women survivors of sex trafficking, supports this bill. We thank Senator Ted Cruz and Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar for their leadership, and we celebrate the bipartisan effort of legislators to pass this meaningful legislation.