The American Congress definitively adopted a text on Monday which criminalizes the sharing of pornographic images for revenge, the “Revenge Porn”, while certain associations are concerned that the text confers the authorities of the increased powers of censorship.
The bill, already adopted by the Senate unanimously in February, received 409 votes for and only two against the House of Representatives, and must now be promulgated by Donald Trump.
Also the images created by AI
The Republican President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, praised a “critical stage in the fight against the increasing publication of real intimate images or” deepfakes “without consent”. “Deepfakes” are false images that are often made now using artificial intelligence tools.
The text “gives more power and provides protections to victims of online sexual exploitation”, “criminalizes the unconted publication of intimate images and requires their withdrawal of online platforms once reported,” he added, thanking Melania Trump. The First Lady had supported the text in early March, during one of her rare public interventions.
Her consensual adoption at the congress “is a powerful message that we hold united to protect the dignity, intimacy and security of our children,” she said in a White House statement on Monday.
More and more falsified pornographic images, representing sometimes very real and published women without their consent, swarm on the internet, gaining speed legislators around the world.
Some American states, including California and Florida, have already adopted laws for the publication of sexually explicit “Deepfakes”.
Fear of censorship
Despite almost unanimity in the Congress in favor of the “Take it Down Act”, associations for the defense of public freedoms are alarmed by potential instrumentalization by the authorities. “Changes to the text are necessary to prevent censorship” of images which do not fall under the non -consented sharing of intimate images, wrote in February a coalition of them in an open letter to the congress.
“If the protection of victims in the face of these odious invasions of intimacy is a legitimate goal, good intentions alone are not enough to make a good law,” said the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, which denounced “vague definitions and the lack of safeguards” which could lead to censorship.
