Overview
- The Senate approved the bill by unanimous consent without a roll call vote after sponsorship by Sen. Dick Durbin and support from both parties.
- The measure lets victims sue creators, distributors, solicitors, and those who possess images with intent to share, and it authorizes takedowns, privacy safeguards, a statute of limitations up to 10 years, and fines up to $250,000 per violation.
- Durbin tied the effort to X’s Grok chatbot generating sexualized images of real people, including minors, after which X limited image-editing features to paid users.
- The bill aims to allow civil claims against platforms for reckless misconduct that enables the creation or spread of nonconsensual deepfakes.
- House action is still required, with a companion bill led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Judiciary Committee, and the proposal builds on last year’s Take It Down Act that criminalized publishing such imagery.