The Federal Trade Commission just put every major tech platform on a strict 48-hour timer. Starting today, the government is officially enforcing the TAKE IT DOWN Act.
If someone posts an intimate photo or video of you online without your permission, the website hosting it now has exactly two days to scrub it from the internet once you ask them to.
They also have to wipe out any identical copies they know about.
This is not a polite suggestion from the federal government.
It is a hard legal mandate.
This enforcement marks a watershed moment in technology regulation, as the TAKE IT DOWN Act is widely recognized as the first major piece of federal legislation directly addressing the harms caused by generative artificial intelligence (Proskauer).
To make sure these companies actually comply, the FTC just launched a brand new website called TakeItDown.ftc.gov.
Think of this site as a direct hotline to federal regulators.
If a platform ignores your removal request, you go to this FTC portal and file a complaint.
You can also report platforms that haven't even bothered to set up a removal process yet.
FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson made it clear that this is about giving people, especially families and children, a real weapon against digital extortion.
He specifically credited First Lady Melania Trump for her dedication to ensuring the public has recourse against these digital threats.
He noted that the rise of artificial intelligence makes this kind of abuse even easier to pull off and target minors.
Now, there is a looming legal collision over end-to-end encryption.
Because platforms are required to make reasonable efforts to remove all known identical copies of the illegal content, industry watchdogs are raising alarms that the government could use this mandate to effectively force companies to break their encrypted messaging ecosystems to scan for offending files (Proskauer).
The agency is not waiting around to see who follows the rules. Just last week, the FTC fired off warning letters to the corporate heavyweights. We are talking about Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Discord, TikTok, and X.
The list of targeted platforms also formally included Automattic, Bumble, Match Group, Microsoft, Pinterest, Reddit, SmugMug, and Snapchat.
The message was simple.
The deadline is May 19, 2026, and time is officially up.
This crackdown is not the end of the regulatory pipeline.
With the government now actively policing intimate digital forgeries, political momentum is rapidly shifting toward expanding these liabilities to cover commercial fraud, with activist groups aggressively lobbying Congress to pass the NO FAKES Act to protect individual voice and performance likenesses from unauthorized digital replication (Action Network).
Works Cited
Action Network. “Support the NO FAKES Act.” Action Network, 2026, actionnetwork.org/petitions/support-the-no-fakes-act/.
Proskauer. “Take it Down Act Signed into Law, Offering Tools to Fight Non-Consensual Intimate Images and Creating a New Image Takedown Mechanism.” Proskauer, 29 May 2025, www.proskauer.com/blog/take-it-down-act-signed-into-law-offering-tools-to-fight-non-consensual-intimate-images-and-creating-a-new-image-takedown-mechanism.
