Donald Trump, who routinely bullies his perceived enemies on social media, decried online harassment and the spread of fake photos on the internet during Monday’s signing of legislation meant to curb so-called revenge porn.
In a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, Trump offered words of support for those “whose lives were rocked by online harassment.” He condemned the “very abusive situation” of deepfakes and other forms of online harassment.
“So horrible what takes place,” the president said, adding, “With the rise of AI image generation, countless women have been harassed with deepfakes and other explicit images, distributed against their will. This is wrong, and it’s just so horribly wrong. … We will not tolerate online sexual exploitation.”
The bill, dubbed the Take It Down Act, aims to stop the proliferation of explicit images posted online without the subject’s consent, including images generated by artificial intelligence, known as deepfakes. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced the bill last year, and it gained momentum in part with the help of first lady Melania Trump before Congress passed it with nearly unanimous support.
Trump’s remarks in the Rose Garden on Monday were somewhat jarring, given his notorious online presence and his history of making lewd comments about women online and sharing fake photos.
In September 2024, Trump reposted to his Truth Social account a fake photo of then-Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris purportedly posing with Sean “Diddy” Combs, who had been indicted days earlier on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. (Combs has pleaded not guilty, and his trial began earlier this month in New York City.) The post shared — and later unshared — by Trump questioned whether Harris had been involved in the disgraced music mogul’s alleged “freak offs.” Roughly a month earlier, Trump shared what appeared to be a series of deepfakes that falsely claimed pop superstar Taylor Swift had endorsed his presidential bid, including an apparently AI-generated image of Swift, dressed as Uncle Sam, with the caption “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” “I accept!” Trump wrote in the post resharing the doctored images. Swift endorsed Harris a couple of weeks later. Days after, Trump memorably declared, “I hate Taylor Swift!”
Hayley Miller is the senior breaking news and blogs editor for MS NOW.
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