Revenge porn — or what, more accurately, should be called non-consensual pornography (“NCP”) — has been in the news lately. Massachusetts recently became the 49th State to enact a law banning and punishing NCP (leaving only South Carolina as the outlier). See news report here.
Moreover, the push to create a federal law banning NCP continues with First Lady, Melania Trump, joining the efforts. In early March 2025, the First Lady spoke on Capitol Hill joined by young victims of NCP and several Senators and Members of Congress. She was promoting a bill called the Take It Down Act which would punish NCP at the federal level and which would also punish creation and distribution of explicit-image AI-generated deepfakes.
The Take It Down Act has been sponsored in the Senate by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. They sponsored similar legislation in 2024. The Senate has already passed the Take It Down Act and, now, the House of Representatives must also pass the bill. As noted, the proposed law would ban NCP and impose punishments from one to three years in prison for sharing non-consensual intimate images depending on the age of the person in the images. The Take It Down Act is being “marketed” as an attempt to protect minors and young adults, but the act also punishes NCP involving adults.
The proposed law would also require social media platforms to put procedures in place to remove such content within 48 hours of notice from the victim. This has been one serious limitation of the State-level statutes that have been enacted. Under various State laws, it has become very cumbersome, difficult and expensive to get the NCP removed from the internet.
The Take It Down Act attempts to solve that problem because the Take It Down Act places the onus on social media companies to take the offending images/video down. The procedurally complex DMCA takedown procedure is replaced. Plus, the Act will have nationwide applicability.
“Revenge porn” is, of course, the popular term used for sexually explicit imagery that was stolen, shared, or otherwise distributed without the person’s consent. See here. A common mental image is, after a breakup, one of the ex-lovers posts on social media sexually explicit photos or videos of the other to take revenge, to embarrass, to harass or to extort them.
Likely, the images and/or video were taken with consent but with the expectation that the images/video would remain private. However, it turns out that NCP is a form of business where criminals gain access to explicit images and upload — or threaten to upload — the images with the intent of extorting money from the victim. In other words, NCP often does not involve a jilted lover. A similar effect can be created using AI-generated images. Usually, this is done by manipulating images to replace a person’s face with the face of the intended victim.
The Take It Down Act does not make changes to the civil aspect of NCP. Aside from the criminal charges that are discussed above, victims have the ability to sue guilty parties for various civil actions. These include:
- Possible copyright infringement claims
- Intrusion upon seclusion
- False light invasion of privacy
- Harassment
- Stalking
- Intentional infliction of emotional distress
- Negligent infliction of emotional distress
- And more
If you are the victim of revenge porn, contact an NCP attorney to learn your rights and how the guilty party can be punished under the civil laws.
Contact the NCP Attorneys at Revision Legal
For more information, contact the experienced NCP Lawyers at Revision Legal. You can contact us through the form on this page or call (855) 473-8474.
