UK Takes Online Nonconsensual Intimate Images Seriously

It would be nice if the US did the same. We passed the “Take it Down” law, but it has not gone into effect yet (it goes into effect in May), so we don’t know how effective it will be. One problem with the law is the only organizations that can enforce it are the FTC for civil penalties and the DoJ for criminal penalties. Whether they have the resources to do that or even any interest in doing that is to be seen.

In the UK, they are proposing an amendment to the UK Crime and Policing Bill that would require companies to take down images in 48 hours of being notified. That would require the victim to know it was posted and request the takedown. The bill is also proposing to require that the victim has to only make a single request and all online platforms would need to comply. It would also require that new uploads need to be automatically deleted.

For the penalty, the UK is taking a more Europe focus. Fines for not complying could be as large as 10% of the company’s qualifying global revenue. So, for Facebook, with a global revenue of $165 billion, that could result in a fine as large as $16 billion.

In addition, if the content is not taken down, the UK regulator, Ofcom, could require the SITE, not the image, to be totally blocked in the country. Ofcom plans to publish instructions for Internet providers on what is required for blocking a site. Other countries have recently blocked Twitter over this to get Musk’s attention.

Separately, Ofcom is considering a regulation requiring sites and apps to figure out how to automatically detect and take down (known) nonconsensual images automatically.

The UK also says that it will make sharing “intimate” images without consent a “priority offense”, allowing them to apply more resources to the crime.

Other countries are also working this problem. When Musk was thumbing his nose at the problem (telling people to get a thicker skin), several countries just flat blocked Twitter completely. Some even banned VPNs since some users were using them to get around the Twitter ban.

Suffice it to say, this is not a simple problem to solve, but it does seem to have regulator’s attention. Credit: The Record

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