Fake Nude of You Hits the Internet Tonight — Do You Know the One Number That Gets It Down in 48 Hours?

A man in Ohio used artificial intelligence to build fake nude images of people in his own community. Some of his targets were adults. Some were children. In April of this year, he became the first person ever convicted under a new federal deepfake law.

Think about what that means for you

Now think about what that means for you. A stranger can take one photo of your face — from a wedding, a work profile, a beach trip — and turn it into a fake nude that looks completely real. This year alone, states passed fifty-eight new laws trying to fight exactly this. You'd think that many laws would make you safer. The uncomfortable truth is the opposite. More laws haven't made the path clearer for victims — they've made it more confusing. So if a fake image of you showed up tonight, would you actually know what to do?

Let's start with the good news, because there is some. According to Ballotpedia, nearly every state in the country now has a law addressing sexually explicit deepfakes. Only two states — Ohio and New Mexico — still don't. And these laws aren't stuck in partisan gridlock. Almost half of this year's new deepfake laws were sponsored by both parties working together. That's rare. It tells you lawmakers across the spectrum agree this is a real problem.

But here's where it falls apart. Where you live decides what protection you actually get. A victim in California can sue the person who made the fake. They have real remedies written into state law. That same victim in Missouri — or in Ohio — might have almost nothing. No right to sue. No state criminal charges to point to. Same harm. Same violation. Completely different outcome, depending on a state line. For an investigator, your jurisdiction now decides whether you can file charges or whether you're stuck with only a takedown request. For everyone else, it means the harm done to you is treated as serious in one zip code and shrugged off in another.

The laws don't even agree on what a deepfake is

And the laws don't even agree on what a deepfake is. States use different definitions. So identical fake images can get handled completely differently from one place to the next. That's the patchwork problem. Bad actors know it. They deliberately operate across state borders to slip through the gaps.

There is one federal backstop everyone should know about. It's called the TAKE IT DOWN Act. It requires platforms to remove a flagged nonconsensual intimate image within forty-eight hours of a verified report from the victim. Two days. That's the number to remember. But it only works if you know it exists — and most people don't.

One more wrinkle. The political side of this is even messier. On 01/30/2026, a federal court permanently blocked Hawaii's election deepfake law. The court said it went too far and violated free speech. Laws that simply require a disclosure — a label saying "this is fake" — tend to survive. Broad bans tend to get struck down.