First lady Melania Trump's signature legislative achievement has been useful for federal prosecutors, but the cases in which the law has been cited raise some serious questions, according to a new report.
Last year, the first lady spearheaded an effort to create a federal law against AI-generated sexual harassment called the "Take It Down Act." Enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, the law requires digital platforms to take down content within 48 hours and imposes strict penalties on individuals convicted of AI-generated harassment and abuse.
The law has already shown some promise as a "useful tool" for prosecutors, according to a new report from Court Watch. It mentions three cases in which President Donald Trump's Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted cases involving nudified or otherwise manipulated media. Each of the cases involved abusers who went after multiple women, according to the report.
But the report also raised red flags about whether the law would be effective at targeting "more isolated and targeted" instances of abuse.
"What’s unclear, however, is how effectively the Take It Down Act will be able to be used to prevent the more isolated and targeted creation of nonconsensual adult content," the report reads in part. "As long as there are AI models available to 'nudify' subjects, there will be ex-boyfriends, classmates, colleagues, and complete strangers who use the technology for nefarious reasons."
The report called out commentators on X who often use Elon Musk's AI model Grok in "spicy mode" to manipulate photographs of women as examples of isolated instances that Melania's law may not be able to touch.
"As the Justice Department begins to create a prosecutorial apparatus to address the growing number of instances in which AI has been used to create nonconsensual adult content, there will undoubtedly be a flood of new criminal cases," the report added.