The Digital Revolution with Jim Kunkle

Take It Down Act: Protecting Privacy Without Silencing America

• Jim Kunkle • Season 3 • Episode 5

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A flood of AI‑generated intimate deepfakes has turned trust into the scarcest commodity online. We unpack the numbers, the human cost, and the legal answer that aims a precise blow at exploitation without dimming the lights on art, satire, or political speech. As lifelong defenders of free expression, we walk through why a narrow rule can strengthen the First Amendment by targeting conduct that forges identity and inflicts real harm—especially against women and minors—while preserving the open marketplace of ideas.

We break down exactly how the Take It Down Act works: criminal penalties for knowingly sharing non‑consensual, sexually explicit deepfakes of real people, heightened protections for minors, and a 48‑hour removal requirement once platforms receive a valid report. No pre‑screening, no government content filters, no attempt to regulate AI in general. Just a reactive, victim‑centered framework that recognizes digital harm as real harm. Along the way, we contrast protected speech with long‑recognized exceptions like harassment, defamation, and invasions of privacy, showing how targeted deepfake abuse fits those boundaries.

Then we zoom out to the bigger picture: digital personhood in a synthetic era. Our likeness now lives in two worlds, and that raises urgent questions about consent, authenticity, and accountability. We talk platform responsibility, provenance signals, and the cultural literacy needed to navigate a media environment where seeing isn’t always believing. This is a call for balance—innovation paired with ethics, speed paired with care, and freedom paired with dignity.

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs clarity on deepfakes and free speech, and leave a review with your take on what protections should come next.

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Jim:

The rise of AI-generated intimate deepfakes has become one of the fastest accelerating digital threats of the last five years, and numbers paint a picture that's impossible to ignore. Between 2020 and 2025, deepfake videos surged by 550%, reaching nearly 100,000 detected videos worldwide. And while not all deepfakes are sexual in nature, research shows that intimate deepfakes remain the dominant category, fueling harassment, exploitation, and reputational harm at a scale we've never seen before. In 2025 alone, more than 600,000 deepfakes were shared on social media platforms. A staggering indicator of how quickly synthetic content is flooding public platforms. The threat is so pervasive that 48% of parents now fear their children's images could be used to create deep fakes. And 65% of internet users say that they are concerned about posting videos of themselves because they're worried about their likeliness being harvested off of social media platforms. But the emotional and reputational damage is only part of the story. The broader public is losing trust in the digital world itself. 87% of consumers say data privacy matters more than ever because deep fake of deepfake fears. And 52% feel less safe online today than they did just a year ago. Meanwhile, the misuse of AI-generated media is fueling a parallel wave of fraud and impersonization. Generative AI-driven fraud losses in the United States is projected to hit 40 billion by 2027, and corporate security teams are sounding the alarm. 79% of businesses worry deepfakes will be used for sabotage, even at the individual level. The threat is real. 26% of people encountered a deepfake scam in 2025, and nearly one in 10 had fallen victim to a deepfake scam. These statistics really set the stage for why the United States enacted the Take It Down Act. And while intimate deepfakes aren't just a technological novelty, they're a rapidly expanding vector of harm, reshaping how we think about identity, consent, free speech, and safety in the digital world. If you've been listening to this podcast series and watching our live streams, webinars, or other video content that this series produces, you already know that we're a huge believer in tools that make digital communication simple, professional, and reliable. And that's exactly why I use StreamYard and their advanced plan for everything I do: audio, video, live streaming, and on-air webinar sessions. StreamYard gives you a studio quality experience right in your browser. No downloads, no complicated setup, just clean, powerful production tools that let you focus on delivering your message. With the advanced plan, I get multi-streaming to multiple platforms, custom branding, local recordings, and the kind of stability you need when you're broadcasting to a global audience. It's the backbone of my digital workflow, and it's the reason why my shows look and sound the way they do. If you're ready to elevate your podcast, your live stream, your webinars, or digital events, I highly recommend checking out StreamYard for yourself. Our referral link is in this episode's description. So take a look, explore the features, save a little money, and see why so many creators and professionals trust StreamYard to power their content. And now let's get this episode started. As an American, I've always believed that the First Amendment is more than a constitutional protection, it's a cultural inherence. It's the backbone of the American identity, the engine of America's innovation, as well as safeguard that allows dissent, creativity, and uncomfortable truths to flourish. I've long taken what many would call an absolutist position, a free expression, that it must remain as unrestricted as possible. Because the moment we allow federal and governments to decide which speech is acceptable, we risk losing the very freedoms that define us. The First Amendment isn't just a national legal doctrine. It's really a promise that ideas, good, bad, or controversial, must be met with more speech, not less. But absolutism doesn't mean blindness. And in this moment, we're continually confronting a technological force that challenges the very foundations of trust and identity in the digital age. AI-generated intimate deepfakes are just another form of speech. They're a weaponized distortion of reality, and they can destroy reputations overnight. They can inflict emotional trauma and they can spread with a speed, a scale that no traditional form of expression has ever matched. They blur the line between truth and fabrication so thoroughly that even the most media literate among us can be fooled. And when these synthetic images target private individuals, especially women and minors, the damage is not theoretical. It's personal, it's lasting and often very devastating. So as someone who champions the First Amendment, I also recognize that deepfakes force us to confront a hard truth. Not everything created with digital tools fits neatly into the category of protected expression. Some of it is pure exploitation, some of it is targeted harassment, and some of it is so corrosive to public trust that it threatens the very marketplace of ideas that the First Amendment was designed to protect. The challenge before us is not to weaken free speech, but to understand how emerging technologies can be misused in ways that the framers could have never imagined and respond with precision, not panic. This episode is about navigating that tension with the use of the Take It Down Act. It's also about holding firm to the principles of free expression while acknowledging that AI-driven deception has created a new class of harm, one that demands thoughtful, narrowly tailored solutions. Because defending the First Amendment doesn't mean defending abuse. It means ensuring that our freedoms endure in a world where the truth itself is under attack. The deep fake dilemma. We're living in a moment where the line between what's real and what's fabricated is thinner than it's ever been. Deep fakes, once a fringe curiosity, have exploded into the mainstream force capable of reshaping reputations, influencing public perception, and destabilizing trust at its core. What began as a technical experiment has evolved into a powerful tool that anyone with a smartphone can wield. And while some people still treat deepfakes as a novelty or a meme, the truth is far more unsettling. These synthetic images and videos are becoming a digital weapon, one that can target individuals, communities, and institutions with frightening precision. The deepfake dilemma isn't just about technology, it's about the erosion of certainty and a world that depends on it. What makes this dilemma so urgent is the speed and scale at which deepfakes spread. A single fabricated image can travel across platforms in minutes, reaching thousands before the truth has a chance to catch up. And victims often don't know, they don't even know that they've been targeted until the damage is already done. And the harm isn't limited to personal embarrassment or reputational bruising. Deep fakes can influence elections, fuel misinformation campaigns, and undermine the credibility of legitimate evidence. They create a world where seeing is no longer believing and where trust, our most fundamental social currency, is consistently under attack. This is the environment we're navigating today, a digital landscape where being authentic is fragile and the consequences of deception are profound. Now, like I said, this episode really is going to be dealing with confronting this reality head on. Because before we can talk about the laws, rights, or protections, we have to understand the scale of the threat. The deep fake dilemma isn't a hypothetical future. It's here in the present. And it's really reshaping how we think about identity, consent, and the truth that ways that demand our full attention. So, what is or what the Take It Down Act actually does? The Take It Down Act is the United States' first major federal response to the explosion of AI generated intimate deepfakes, and its power lies in the narrowly and precisely how it's written. This isn't a sweeping attempt to regulate all AI content or police creativity online. Instead, it targetes one specific and really deeply harmful behavior, which is the creation and distribution of non-consensual, sexually explicit deepfakes of real people. Now, under the act, it becomes a federal crime to knowingly publish an AI-generated sexual image of an identifiable person without their consent when the attempt is to cause harm or when harm actually occurs. The law recognizes that these images aren't just content, they're digital forgeries designed to humiliate, intimidate, or exploit someone by fabricating a scenario where they never participated in. The act draws an even firmer line. When it comes to minors, for anyone under 18, the law doesn't require proof of harm or malicious intent. If someone creates or shares an AI-generated sexual image of a minor for the purpose of abuse, harassment, humiliation, or gratification, it's automatically a federal crime. There's no questions, there's no loopholes. Congress made it clear that minors deserve the strongest possible protection in a world where their images can be scraped, manipulated, or weaponized without their knowledge. But the act doesn't stop at criminal penalties. It also places new responsibility on the online platforms. Websites and social networks must provide a clear, accessible way for victims to report deep fake images. And once a valid report is filed, the platform has 48 hours to not only remove the content, but the takedown requirement really significantly shifts the U.S. digital policy because it signals that platforms can no longer hide behind neutrality when synthetic material and abuse material is involved. They must act quickly, decisively, consistently. So, in short, the Take It Down Act is designed to do one thing exceptionally well protect individuals from the devastating harm of non-consensual, intimate, deep fakes. It doesn't censor ideas, it doesn't restrict political speech, it doesn't touch satire, art, or general AI creativity. Focus solely on stopping a form of digital exploitation that's become far too easy to create and far too damaging to ignore. So why this law does not violate the First Amendment? When we talk about regulating speech in the United States, the First Amendment casts a long and uncompromising shadow. And it should. It's the strongest free speech protection in the world, and it has withstood every cultural, political, and technological shift for more than two centuries. But even as the First Amendment, as a First Amendment absolutionist, I recognize a fundamental truth that's embedded in our constitutional tradition. The First Amendment has never truly protected all speech, and it's never legally shielded obscenity, defamation, true threats, harassment, or targeted invasions of privacy. The Take It Down Act fits squarely within those long-standing legal exceptions. It doesn't criminalize ideas, opinions, satire, or artistic expression. It criminalizes the harmful act of fabricating imagery of really a real person without their consent and distributing it in a way that causes its intent to cause real world harm to the victim. Now, the key to understanding why this law is constitutional is recognizing what it actually regulates. It doesn't police viewpoints, it doesn't silent dissent, it doesn't give the government the power to decide which ideas are acceptable. Instead, it targets a specific form of exploitation, digital forgeries that depict a person in a scenario that they never participated in. And that's not speech in a traditional sense. It's really a false, falsified representation of someone's uh likeliness, their identity, and their dignity, one that can destroy reputations, careers, and also emotional well-being. Courts have consistently held that the government has a compelling interest in protecting individuals from targeted harassment and non-consensual exploitation. The Take It Down Act is built on that foundation. It is narrow, it's precise, and it's tailored to address a very specific harm that the framers could never have imagined or really recognized as a violation of personal liberty. And perhaps most importantly, the act preserves the core of the First Amendment by refusing to overreach. It doesn't touch political speech, parody, commentary, or general AI creativity. It doesn't crimpise uh consensual content or fictional characters. It focuses solely on the misuse of the technology to fabricate images of real people without their consent. And in that sense, the law doesn't weaken the First Amendment. It reinforces the principle that free expression thrives when individuals are protected from corrosion, uh, abuse, and identity theft. The marketplace of ideas depends on trust and deepfakes exploitations erodes that trust at its very foundation. By targeting the harm, not the speech, the take-it down act stands firmly with constitutional boundaries while addressing one of the most urgent digital threats of our time. So, what the law doesn't do, one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the Take It Down Act is the fear that it represents a slippery slope, a federal overreach into online expression, creativity, or political discourse. But that's not what the law is designed to do. In fact, its strength comes from what it doesn't touch. The Act does not regulate AI art, satire, parody, political commentary, or general creative experimentation with synthetic media. It does criminalize the use of AI tools, and I'm sorry, it doesn't criminalize the use of AI tools, and it doesn't police fictional characters or fantasy content, and it doesn't interfere with consensual imagery. The law was intentionally narrow because Congress understood that protecting individuals from targeted exploitation must not come at the cost of restricting legitimate expression. And the act also doesn't give the government broad authority to monitor or censor online platforms. It doesn't create a federal agency to review content, and it doesn't impose pre-screening requirements on social networks. Instead, it simply requires platforms to respond when a victim reports a non-consensual deep fake. That's it. No surveillance, no content filters, no government-run moderation. The responsibility remains with the platform to act quickly once they're notified, and with law enforcement, really, to pursue cases where real harm is involved. This is a reactive framework, not a proactive one. And that distinction matters for anyone concerned about free speech. And perhaps most importantly, the law doesn't redefine what counts as protected speech in America. It doesn't expand the list of unprotected categories, it doesn't create new speech crimes. It focuses solely on the specific form of digital misinterpretation that weaponizes someone's likeliness without their consent. By drawing a tight circle around this one harmful behavior, the Take It Down Act avoids the constitutional pitfalls that come with broader content regulation. It protects people without policing ideas. It addresses abuse without touching expression, and it reinforces a principle that has guided American law for generations, that your right to speak freely does not include the right to fabricate someone else's body, their identity, or their dignity. So the bigger picture, what this means for the digital future, when we zoom out from the legal language and the policy mechanics, the Take It Down Act becomes something much larger than a single piece of legislation. It marks a turning point in how the United States and really the world begins to define the boundaries of digital personhood. For the first time, federal law acknowledges that our identities now live in two places, in the physical world and the digital one, or the synthetic one. And in that synthetic world, our likeness could be copied, it can be misused, and it could be weaponized without our knowledge. The act signals that society is no longer willing to accept that kind of vulnerability as the cost of really the cost of living online. It's the beginning of a broader shift towards recognizing that digital harm is real harm and that protecting people in the age of AI requires new frameworks, new responsibilities, and new expectations. But the bigger picture isn't just about protection, it's about the future we're building. As AI becomes more powerful and more accessible, the question isn't whether synthetic media will shape our world, but how? How will the take-it-down act? How will it show that we can draw lines without stifling innovation? When we can demand accountability without shuttering down creativity, and when we can build a digital ecosystem where trust is not an outdated concept, but a foundational one. This law is a signal to technologists, policymakers, and platforms that the era of move fast and break things, it's really over. The next chapter of the digital revolution will be defined by balance, freedom, and responsibility, along with innovation with ethics and technological possibilities with human dignity. In many ways, this moment is the start of a new. Social contract for the digital age, one where individuals have the right to control their likeliness, one where platforms are expected to act when harm occurs, and one where AI is not feared, but guided, shaped intentionally rather than left to evolve unchecked. The Take It Down Act doesn't solve every challenge we face, but it sets a precedent in that it tells us that we can confront the darker uses of technology without sacrificing the values that define us. And as we look ahead, that balance between liberty and protection, between innovation and integrity, will be the compass that guides the digital future. So my thoughts, turning point in digital rights. As we step back and take a look at the broader landscape, it's clear that the Take It Down Act represents more than a policy response to a technological problem. It marks a turning point in how we as a society define and defend digital rights. For years, we've treated the online world as a kind of frontier, open, unregulated, and shaped by the fastest innovators rather than the most thoughtful stewards. But deep fakes have forced us to confront a new reality. Our identities, our reputations, and even our sense of truth are now suspect and also vulnerable in ways that the analog world had never prepared us for. This law is one of the first acknowledgments that digital harm is not an abstract, it's personal, it's emotional, and it can be very devastating. Protecting people from that harm isn't a limitation on freedom, it's an affirmation of dignity. And what makes this moment so important is that it shows that we can respond to emerging threats without abandoning the principles that define us. The Take It Down Act doesn't weaken the First Amendment. It really reinforces the idea that freedom and responsibility must evolve together. It demonstrates that we can draw precise boundaries around harmful behavior without chilling legitimate expressions or even creativity. And it signals to technologists, lawmakers, and citizens alike that the era of uncountable accountability and digital manipulation is coming to an end. We're entering into a new chapter, one where digital rights are treated with the same seriousness as the physical rights, and where the protection of identity becomes a core part of our social contract. As we move forward, the challenge will be really maintaining this balance. Technology will continue to advance, and AI will become more powerful and more accessible and also more deeply woven into our daily lives. But as we approach these changes with clarity, courage, and a commitment to both liberty and protection, we can build a digital future that strengthens, not erodes, our shared values. And this is a turning point, not just in policy, but in mindset. And how we choose to navigate it will define the next era of the digital revolution. If you've been following my work, whether it's podcasting, live streaming, or digital content that I produce across platforms, you know that I'm always looking for tools that elevate both quality and efficiency. And one of the most powerful tools in my workflow right now is Eleven Labs, specifically their creator plan. The creator plan gives you access to some of the most advanced AI voice technology available today. We're talking natural, expressive, studio grade voice generation that's perfect for narration, promos, training content, and also even multilingual delivery. It's fast, it's flexible, and it integrates seamlessly into a modern creator's production pipeline. Whether you're building a brand, you're producing educational content, or you're scaling your digital presence, 11 Labs gives you the ability to sound polished, consistent, and professional every single time. If you're ready to take your audio production to the next level, I highly recommend checking out the 11 Labs Creator Plan for yourself. My referral link to set up your account and save a little money when you pay for the plan. Well, that link is in this episode's description. So take a moment to explore what 11 Labs can do for your content. The creator plan isn't just one of those tools that it doesn't just improve your workflow, it transforms it. Create smarter, create faster, create with 11 labs. And now let me close out this episode. One last thing I'd like to cover. And it's really clear that the digital shift is far more than a collection of trends or technologies. It's a fundamental reordering of how we work, how we lead, and how we create value in the world. And the world is moving faster than ever. We've explored what's real and what's noise and what's next, and really the thought line, everything is unmistakable. The businesses and the professionals who thrive will be the ones who stay curious, that stay adaptable, and stay grounded in purpose. Digital transformation isn't about chasing the newest tool or reacting to the loudest headline. It's about building clarity, trust, and human-centered systems that can evolve as the world evolves. The digital revolution is something happening that's it's not just something happening out there. It's happening in our daily decisions, in the way we design experiences, and also the way we empower people and the way we choose to lead. The future belongs to those who approach the shift with intention, leaders who understand that technology is powerful, but people who are transformative. As you move forward, take the insights from this episode and apply it with confidence, challenge assumptions and cut through the noise, and continue shaping a digital future that's smarter, more connected, and unmistakably more human. So thank you for joining me on this journey. Until next time, keep learning, keep leading, and keep pushing the digital revolution forward.

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Jim Kunkle

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