Free speech concerns
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been speaking out against the bill, saying “it could be easily manipulated to take down lawful content that powerful people simply don’t like.” The EFF pointed to Trump’s comments in an address to a joint session of Congress last month, in which he suggested he would use the bill for his own ends.
“Once it passes the House, I look forward to signing that bill into law. And I’m going to use that bill for myself too if you don’t mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody,” Trump said, drawing laughs from the crowd at Congress.
The EFF said, “Congress should believe Trump when he says he would use the Take It Down Act simply because he’s ‘treated badly,’ despite the fact that this is not the intention of the bill. There is nothing in the law, as written, to stop anyone—especially those with significant resources—from misusing the notice-and-takedown system to remove speech that criticizes them or that they disagree with.”
Free speech concerns were raised in a February letter to lawmakers sent by the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Authors Guild, Demand Progress Action, the EFF, Fight for the Future, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge, and TechFreedom.
The bill’s notice and takedown system “would result in the removal of not just nonconsensual intimate imagery but also speech that is neither illegal nor actually NDII [nonconsensual distribution of intimate imagery]… While the criminal provisions of the bill include appropriate exceptions for consensual commercial pornography and matters of public concern, those exceptions are not included in the bill’s takedown system,” the letter said.
