You Can Get Some of Your Nudes Removed From the Internet Under a New Law
Once someone submits a takedown request, a platform has up to 48 hours to determine whether it is valid. If it decides that it is, then it has to remove both the content reported and any identical copies.
Several larger platforms say they use an industry tool called StopNCII, which uses matching algorithms to identify abusive images and videos and is maintained by a British nonprofit. People can open cases directly on the tool’s website to add to what the tool flags. Reddit, TikTok, Snap, Microsoft Bing, and Meta’s social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are all listed as participants on the tool’s website.
Though many major platforms have dedicated forms to help guide the submission process, Alejandro Cuevas, a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy who studied the impact of initial passage of the law on deepfake communities, has observed that some sites offer only an email address for people to submit takedown requests.
Cuevas says in those cases, keeping good documentation, including links to the offending content, is especially important, because there’s a concern that if “submitters fail to just do one of these things, that would be a shield for the company potentially to not comply with the request or to delay it or to dillydally.”
Meta
Cindy Southworth, Meta’s head of women safety, says in a statement that the company supported the act and that it has “already been compliant for several months.” Meta offers a help page that includes directions for submitting requests on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Meta AI.
Microsoft
To file a takedown request for some Microsoft products, including Bing Search and OneDrive, Microsoft has a form titled “Report a Concern.” People first have to identify the service the content is on and share a link to it before identifying their “Concern type” as “Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery.”
Brad Smith, the vice chair and president of Microsoft, says in a statement that “President Trump’s signing of the Take It Down Act provides essential tools to prevent the misuse of technology and protect individuals from digital harm.”
Google (Including YouTube)
A Google spokesperson tells WIRED that the company endorsed the act and has been investing in policies and tools to stymy nonconsensual intimate imagery since 2015. Google has a dedicated takedown request form where people can submit up to 10 links at a time, and has a separate form where people can submit YouTube-specific takedown requests.
Reddit spokesperson Jen Molina says that Reddit was an early supporter of the Take It Down Act and that it has “updated our systems to ensure full compliance with the Act’s specific requirements as they go into effect.”
Logged-in users can report individual posts, and Reddit added a reporting form and help center article to its website on May 19.
Snap
A Snap company spokesperson says in a statement to WIRED: “We’ve established processes for Snapchatters and other individuals to report this type of content. We continue to evolve these systems as part of our broader safety efforts, including investing in tools and technologies to proactively detect and take action on unwanted nudes and similar imagery shared without permission.”
The spokesperson shared a link to a help page that the company appears to have updated to include references to the act after WIRED’s outreach. (Following publication, a Snap spokesperson said the update is “unrelated” to its communication with WIRED.)
