The TAKE IT DOWN Act made publishing non-consensual intimate images — real or AI-generated — a federal crime, and gave victims a 48-hour removal mandate that platforms answer to the FTC for. Here is the whole law in plain English, from a team that files under it every day.
If you found this page in the worst week of your life — this is fixable, and you will not have to read the statute alone.
This page is education, not legal advice. We are a removal agency, not a law firm; for advice on your specific situation, consult an attorney — or start with the free assessment and we'll tell you honestly what your case needs.
From the moment a valid request lands, a covered platform has 48 hours. Scroll — the window closes, and the obligations come due in order.
Covered platforms must remove reported non-consensual intimate imagery within 48 hours of a valid request, make reasonable efforts to remove identical copies, and answer to the Federal Trade Commission for failures to comply.
00:00:00 — the platform is out of time, and out of discretion. Our job is making sure the clock started the first time.
Two sides do the work: a criminal side that makes publishing a federal offense, and a removal side that puts platforms on a 48-hour clock. The red margin is the part that matters to you.
The TAKE IT DOWN Act passes Congress with near-unanimous support and is signed. From this day, publishing non-consensual intimate imagery — real or AI-generated — is a federal crime.
The one-year grace period ends. Every covered platform must now operate a notice-and-removal process and honor the 48-hour window.
The removal mechanism is in force and FTC-enforceable. A platform that misses the window has a federal regulatory problem — and we put that in writing when we file.
In forceThree sentences victims hear — each one wrong. The statute strikes them out.
Consent to share once, privately, is never consent to publish. The Act explicitly covers images you originally took or shared willingly.
COVERED — SHARED PRIVATELY, ONCEA digital forgery of an identifiable person is covered the same as an authentic photograph. You never posed for anything; the law protects you anyway.
COVERED — DIGITAL FORGERYThreats to publish are how many of these cases begin. Preparation lets a request go out the moment anything appears — and if money is being demanded, do not pay. Talk to us first.
COVERED — THREATENED, NOT POSTEDPlatforms reject malformed requests silently — there is no rejection letter and no restarted clock. The 48 hours begins only when a request is valid. That is the part we industrialized: every notice we file is built to start the clock the first time, across 30,000+ cases handled monthly with a 72-hour average to verified removal.
Aggregate outcomes across eligible cases; individual results vary per your written service agreement.
REPRESENTATIVE SCENARIO — composite of typical engagements, anonymized. Individual results vary; eligibility and any results-based terms are defined in your written service agreement.
The Act is the sharpest tool. It is not the only one. We file under whichever instrument fits each URL — often several at once.
For non-consensual intimate imagery of adults — real or AI-generated — on covered platforms. A valid victim request starts a federal clock, and the FTC enforces it. Detailed above; the sharpest tool when it applies.
Read the annotated act ↑A selfie is your copyrighted work. The DMCA's notice-and-takedown regime is one of the fastest removal instruments on the internet — and it reaches content the Act may not: stolen galleries, paywalled reposts, watermarked shots.
Section 230 shields platforms from liability for what users post. It does not shield them from their own written policies — and every major platform bans NCII and targeted harassment in writing. We cite the exact clause, every time. That is why notice strategy matters more than outrage.
When source removal isn't available — court records, certain protected reporting — delisting under search-engine policy removes the result from where people actually look. A fallback to removal, never a substitute, and we never bill it as one.
The Act binds covered platforms serving U.S. users. An offshore site with no U.S. presence may never answer a victim notice — but it still rents servers, leases a domain, rides a CDN, and lives in a search index. Each of those providers has rules of its own. We file at every layer, simultaneously.
The machine serving the files answers to its own acceptable-use policy. The server comes down.
The domain is leased, not owned. Registrars suspend names used for abuse.
The network delivering the content can stop carrying it — worldwide, at the edge.
What survives stops being findable. A fallback to removal, never a substitute — and labeled that way in your report.
These channels fire in parallel with every Act and DMCA notice — a site that stonewalls loses its plumbing, not just a letter.
We file under the right instrument for your case — and tell you honestly which one fits, before you commit.
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04 — FindingsEND OF SECTION 03 — LEGAL INSTRUMENTS · SECTION 04 — FINDINGS & PROOF