FTC Chairman Sends Take It Down Act Compliance Letters to 15+ Tech Companies With May 19 Deadline
Tags Consumer · Enterprise
FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson sent compliance letters on May 11, 2026, to over a dozen major tech platforms including Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, and X, reminding them of their May 19 deadline to implement processes for removing nonconsensual intimate images within 48 hours of a valid request. The Take It Down Act, signed into law by President Trump in May 2025, carries civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation. The FTC stated it will monitor compliance, investigate violations, and enforce the law starting May 19. The law was championed by First Lady Melania Trump.
Technical significance
The May 19 enforcement deadline creates immediate compliance pressure on every major platform. The $53,088 per-violation penalty scales with volume, meaning platforms with billions of users face potentially enormous liability. The law's application to AI-generated nonconsensual imagery (deepfakes) is particularly significant given the rapid improvement of generative AI models, though the statute's language may need updating to address synthetic media specifically.