The TAKE IT DOWN Act seeks to speed up the removal of certain kinds of troubling online content, but lacks necessary safeguards to protect free expression, user privacy, and due process. While the bill is meant to address a serious problem—the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery—the notice-and-takedown system it creates is an open invitation for powerful people to pressure websites into removing content they dislike.

President Trump has shown just how this system can be abused, saying earlier this year in a joint address to Congress that he would personally use the takedown provisions to censor speech critical of the president. The TAKE IT DOWN Act is the wrong approach to helping people whose intimate images are shared without their consent. We can help victims of online harassment without embracing a new regime of online censorship.