Bipartisan group of senators targets deepfake revenge porn with new legislation

Ellis Barry woke up one day in her freshman year of high school to find deepfake intimate photos of her plastered across Snapchat. It took months, dozens of requests and a call from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for the photos to finally come down. 

That might change soon. 

On Tuesday, Cruz and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) introduced the Take It Down Act, which would require internet sites to take down deepfake revenge porn within 48 hours. 

“If you don’t happen to be in a situation where a sitting member of Congress intervenes on your behalf, you get a closed door and stonewalled,” Cruz said at Tuesday’s press conference. “That is not fair, and that is not right. It should not take an elected member of Congress intervening to have these despicable lies pulled down from Snapchat.” 

In a press conference Tuesday, Barry, her mother Anna McAdams; Dorota Mani, the mother of another victim of deepfake pornography; and leaders of three organizations focusing on sexual violence explained the importance of this law’s passage alongside Cruz and Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.).