According to anti-establishment sensibilities, when there's bipartisanship in Washington, D.C., one can rest assured "our leaders" are up to no good. The policies they're implementing are often framed in a way that makes them seem impossible to question.

Case in point: The "Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act" (TAKE IT DOWN Act), which Congress recently passed and Donald Trump signed this week.

On its face, it's ludicrous to oppose the TAKE IT DOWN Act. The bill aims to provide a swift mechanism for taking down non-consensual intimate sexual content—whether authentic or deepfakes—and empowers the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce it. Who could oppose putting a stop to such vulgar, violative practices (deemed "non-consensual intimate visual depiction" in the bill and also frequently termed "non-consensual intimate imagery, or NCII)?

Hardly anyone, according to Congress. Only two House members voted against the bill, one of them Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky (he's currently the target of the president's ire for voting against the massive "Big Beautiful" spending bill). The TAKE IT DOWN Act sailed through the Senate with "unanimous consent."

Beyond the narrative

While the legislation will almost certainly enable quick recourse for victims of such abusive postings, it is rife with problems. The bill has led some internet privacy and civil liberties advocates to sound the alarm on the potential for sweeping censorship.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit focused on defending civil liberties online, "The takedown provision in TAKE IT DOWN applies to a much broader category of content—potentially any images involving intimate or sexual content—than the narrower NCII definitions found elsewhere in the bill." But this is not the only privacy or censorship concern.

Before the bill's passage in the House, Trump told Congress he intended to use it for himself "because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody." This sparked further concerns among critics. As EFF said, "He wants to sign the bill into law, then use it to remove content about — him. And he won't be the only powerful person to do so." Whether or not he or other politicians will do this remains to be seen, but there are still more concerns.