Last week, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., once a presidential hopeful, became relevant again by blocking the Take It Down Act, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. The bill would have criminalized AI-generated deepfakes of revenge porn involving minors. When the bipartisan bill came up for a vote, Booker filed a last-minute objection that prevented its passage. When asked to explain what his objection actually was, he said nothing.
This has led observers to conclude that Booker’s primary motive was to deny Cruz a legislative victory during an election, since Booker is good friends with Rep. Colin Allred, Cruz’s opponent in this year’s Texas Senate race. Cruz understandably sounded off on this likelihood: “I sure hope he’s not standing up here denying victims of this abuse relief simply to score partisan political points … in order to believe he wouldn’t do such a thing, he needs to actually explain some reason for his objection.”
Even more angry was 15-year-old Francesca Mani, who, according to Time magazine, “learned that boys in her class had used AI software to fabricate sexually explicit images of Mani and her female classmates.” Despite being one of Booker’s constituents in New Jersey, she ended up working with the senator from Texas to help bring justice for the victims of this harassment and “sextortion.”
If Cruz’s bill amounted to useless political virtue signaling, Booker’s dissent might have more merits. However, as Mani’s experience attests, the Take It Down Act really does address a growing problem. Cruz also mentioned
