Platforms now have 48 hours to pull an intimate image down, and the FTC has posted how to make them

Since May 19, 2026, online platforms covered by a federal law have been required to remove nonconsensual intimate images within 48 hours of a valid request, and the Federal Trade Commission has built a complaint form for the cases where they do not. The law is the TAKE IT DOWN Act, and the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection published two consumer alerts about it, on Sept. 17 and Sept. 23, 2026.

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Both alerts are written as procedure. They say what a platform owes a person who asks for removal, what counts as a violation, and how to tell the FTC when a platform has failed. The description below follows the same approach and stays with the process rather than the content of any image.

The 48-hour clock in the TAKE IT DOWN Act

The FTC’s Sept. 17 alert states the rule in plain terms. Platforms must give people an easy way to submit a takedown request for an intimate photo or video that was shared online without permission, and the law requires them to take the content down within 48 hours. If a platform has not removed the image within 48 hours of a request, the alert says that is a violation of the Act. So is having no removal process at all, or having one that is broken.

The deadline runs from the request, not from the day the image first appeared. That timing explains why the alert tells people to report only after a platform has failed to act or to respond: the count begins when a request reaches the platform. The alert itself does not define which services are covered, which is why the statute’s definition matters.

Who is covered and what the FTC letter requires

The statute’s full name is the Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act. It was signed in May 2025 as Public Law 119-12, according to a WilmerHale client alert on the law’s start. That analysis describes a covered platform as a website, online service or application that serves the public and either primarily provides a forum for user-generated content or, in the regular course of business, publishes, curates, hosts or makes available such imagery. It adds that a good-faith safe harbor protects platforms that remove material that appears to be covered, even if it later proves lawful.

The agency’s own expectations are set out in its stakeholder letter, signed by Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. It says covered platforms had until May 19, 2026 to comply with Section 3 of the Act. They must establish a removal process, give clear plain-language notice of how to use it, make requests easy to submit even for people with no account on the platform, and make reasonable efforts to find and remove known identical copies. The letter also suggests, as recommendations rather than requirements, numbering each request, telling requesters whether content was removed, and using hashing to stop removed material from reappearing, with hashes shared through NCMEC for minors or StopNCII.org for adults.

Filing at TakeItDown.ftc.gov

The Sept. 23 alert gives the steps. A person whose request went unanswered, or unfulfilled for 48 hours, goes to TakeItDown.ftc.gov and enters the platform’s name, with as much detail as possible about where the image was posted. Information about the person making the report, or the person on whose behalf the report is made, is optional. The last step is selecting submit. The FTC says such reports help keep platforms accountable for complying with the Act.

The site does more than collect complaints. According to the alert, it also offers resources to help stop images from spreading, connects people with support organizations, and lets visitors report the person who posted the images to law enforcement. Those pieces matter because a platform complaint addresses the company’s compliance, not the person responsible, and the two tracks run separately. Both consumer alerts were updated on Oct. 5, 2026, and each carries a short instructional video, so the process is documented in more than one format for people who would rather watch the steps than read them.

Rule violations and civil penalties

The enforcement path comes from the statute’s structure. The stakeholder letter says a failure to comply with Section 3 is treated as a violation of an FTC rule, and that the agency intends to enforce the law vigorously. The Sept. 17 alert and the letter both put the civil penalty at $53,088 per violation. The WilmerHale analysis notes that the law also criminalizes knowingly publishing, or threatening to publish, such imagery, including AI-generated forgeries, with the platform duties and the criminal provisions operating independently.

For a person dealing with a stalled request, the sequence is therefore concrete. Submit the request through the platform’s own removal process, note the date and time, wait 48 hours, and if the image is still up or no one has answered, file at TakeItDown.ftc.gov. The FTC cannot promise an individual outcome from one report, but a report is how the agency learns which platforms are missing the deadline. Because the penalty is counted per violation, the FTC’s stated penalty figure applies to each failure to honor a valid request. People who cannot tell whether a particular service is covered can still file, since the form asks for the platform’s name and where the image was posted.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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