Musing on the deepfake law that threatens free speech.
Perhaps it is of no surprise…
It’s hardly surprising that a bipartisan act targeting deepfakes and “protecting children” online doubles as a smokescreen for administrative control. It’s unsurprising that such public personalities would take issue with memes generating the figure with progressively exaggerated baby-like features to infantilize them or with several minute-long generated videos of certain foot idolatry.
And yet, the TAKE IT DOWN Act (S. 146) is before us, promising that the internet will be a secure place for everyone once we’re able to control public discourse with fines and jail time.
What It Claims to Do
In its most flattering light, the TAKE IT DOWN Act is an attempt to modernize obscenity and revenge porn statutes to handle the synthetic nightmare that is AI-generated sexual content. But once you strip away the branding, “Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes”, the core machinery becomes visible.
What It Actually Does
The Act’s most insidious feature is its illusion of privacy protection, while ignoring the underlying machinery of digital surveillance. It doesn’t ask platforms to change how they collect, store, or monetize user data. It doesn’t disrupt surveillance capitalism. It doesn’t target the biometric recognition systems or the lubricated data pipelines between apps and law enforcement.
Instead, it offers the illusion of control: a narrow, punitive mechanism that only activates after the harm, with language so vague that its true function is to deputize platforms into risk-averse censorship machines.
And it does so under the pretense that identifiability is obvious. As if the average platform moderator can discern whether a blurred tattoo, an AI-generated mole, or a pair of distinctively shaped feet are “recognizable” enough to trigger liability. The Act’s definition of an “identifiable individual” includes partial appearances and other distinguishing characteristics; language so porous that a paranoid ex could invoke it, a politician could abuse it, and a bored lawyer could stretch it into a business model.
The Result? Silence.
The result isn’t safety. It’s silence. Not just for predators and revenge porn peddlers, but for artists, critics, journalists, and anyone whose work involves bodies, satire, or dissent. The kind of silence that arrives not through prosecution, but through preemptive deletion.
Just in case.
This Grimoire of Many Musings is for entertainment, education, and the occasional act of legal autopsy. It is analysis, not legal advice; if you want that, hire counsel. It reflects no one’s views in real life except the voices rattling around Inverlyst’s head. No past, present, or future employer has signed off on any of this.
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