In today’s episode DecoderI talk to Edge Policy editor Adi Robertson on the Act on Take IT Down, which is part of a long line of bills that would make the distribution of non -consistency intimate images or ncii. This is a wide date that includes what people called porn revenge, but now includes such things as deeply refined acts.
The act was sponsored by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), and the Senate has just passed. This would create criminal sanctions for people who divide NCII, including paintings generated by AI, and also forced the platforms to abolish it within 48 hours of the report or to face financial penalties.
NCII is a real and destructive problem on the internet – it ruins the lives of many people, and Ai simply worsens. There are many good reasons why you would like to convey such an invoice, but Adi wrote a long song, arguing that in this way passing on the recent entitlement of Trump’s administration over speech would be a mistake. In particular, she wrote that she would give Trump a “weapon” with which you can attack speech and speech platforms that he doesn’t like.
At a high level, her argument is that Trump is much more likely that she wields such a law against his enemies – which means almost everyone he does not like or agrees – and much more likely that it protects people and companies that he considers friends against consequences. And we know who his friends are: it is Elon Musk, who is now working as part of the Trump administration, while running X, which is full of NCII.
Now Adi and I discussed online speech and how it is regulated as long as The Verge It existed. We went there and back, where the lines should be drawn and who should draw them as many times as two people can over the years. But this conversation always assumed a stable, rational policy creation system based on equal application of law.
Here in 2025, Trump explained that he may also enforce the law selectively, and it changes it all. After breaking the equal application of the law, you will break many things – and there is simply no evidence that Trump is interested in the equal application of the law. You can hear how you really face it. The problem does not disappear just because solutions deteriorate or that people entrusted to the enforcement of law become more confused.
So in this episode ADI and I really go into the details of the Take It Down act, as it can be armed and why we can not trust anything that Trump’s administration says about the protection of victims of this abuse.
Questions or comments about this episode? Hit us at decoder@theverge.com. We really read every e -mail!