The U.S. Sentencing Commission is issuing preliminary sentencing guidelines for criminal offenses under the Take It Down Act, a law passed earlier this year to curb the spread of nonconsensual deepfake pornography.
The Take It Down Act marks one of the first major pieces of legislation passed by Congress to address AI-generated deepfakes, attracting broad bipartisan support. The legislation sailed through Congress, passing 402-2 in the House and comfortably in the Senate, despite opposition from some digital rights groups, and had the vocal support of First Lady Melania Trump.
The law’s language makes it a federal crime to publicize nonconsensual intimate or pornographic imagery of others, both real and AI-generated, and requires companies to remove any images hosted or shared on their platforms within 48 hours of receiving notice. It also empowers the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and enforce compliance.
The legislation provides broad guidance on prison sentences and financial penalties for offenses, with digital forgers subject to fines and up to two years of imprisonment for deepfaking an adult and up to three years for a minor.
The commission proposes more specific penalties for different types of offenses, while also seeking public input on the most appropriate way to define the offense in U.S. law.
For example, the law included specific language adding new criminal offenses for deepfakes to sections of U.S. law prohibiting obscene or harassing phone calls, a nod to how much nonconsensual pornography is shared through smartphones.
That section has been updated to further define the offense as anyone using “an interactive computer service” to knowingly publish an “intimate visual depiction” of a minor and (in certain cases) adults with the intent to “abuse, humiliate, harass, or degrade” or “arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.”
Individuals found guilty of threatening to publish nonconsensual deepfakes of an adult would be subject to a maximum of years in prison if the threat involves “an intimate visual depiction” of them and 18 months if the deepfake is used for digital forgery. Deepfaking a minor for the purpose of digital forgery carries a maximum sentence of 30 months.
While experts have warned about the damaging potential of deepfakes for years, large language models have gotten increasingly better at developing lifelike media. As more AI deepfake tools come online, public interest groups have called for companies like OpenAI to take tools like Sora 2 offline after they were used to create scores of false cell-phone style videos depicting food stamp recipients that were later picked up by real news outlets like Fox News.
This month, the American Bar Association released a report around the use of AI in the legal sector that found courts were generally unprepared for deepfake media and the many ways it could impact the integrity of evidence presented to the court.
The deepfake changes are part of a broader package of proposed regulatory changes the U.S. Sentencing Commission is proposing, with any comments from the public accepted until Feb. 16, 2026.
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The commission is asking whether nonconsensual deepfake porn should be classified under U.S. law as harassment, blackmail or sending obscene material to minors.
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