To request removal under the Take It Down Act, use the platform's own notice-and-removal process and put your request in writing with the parts the law lists: your physical or electronic signature, enough detail for the platform to find the image, a brief good-faith statement that it was published without your consent, and a way to contact you. The FTC's compliance guidance says a covered platform that receives a valid request must remove the content and known identical copies within 48 hours. If it does not, you can report the platform to the FTC.
This page covers the US federal notice-and-removal process only. How hashing can stop re-uploads is explained in how StopNCII works, and OnlyFans' own rules on generated imagery sit in the OnlyFans AI and deepfake policy guide. It is general information, not legal advice.
What Section 3 requires of platforms
The TAKE IT DOWN Act became law on 19 May 2025, and the enacted text on Congress.gov gave covered platforms a year to set up a removal process. The FTC began enforcing that part of the law on 19 May 2026 and launched TakeItDown.ftc.gov the same day, according to its enforcement announcement.
A covered platform is a public-facing website, online service or app that mainly hosts user-generated content, or one whose regular business is publishing or making available non-consensual intimate imagery. The statute excludes broadband providers, email, and services built mainly on content the provider preselects where comments or chat are incidental. The FTC reads the definition broadly, naming social media, messaging, image and video sharing and gaming platforms.
Three duties follow. The platform must publish a clear, plain-language notice explaining how to submit a request. It must remove the depiction after a valid request and make reasonable efforts to find and remove known identical copies, so you do not have to report every duplicate. And the FTC expects the process to work for people who have no account on the platform. Coverage includes digital forgeries, which the Act defines as intimate depictions created or altered with software, machine learning or AI that a reasonable person could not tell apart from a real one.
Who can ask, and the catch for paid content
The request comes from the identifiable individual or someone authorised to act for them. The law treats you as identifiable when your face, likeness or another distinguishing feature, such as a birthmark, is shown with the image. It defines consent as an affirmative, conscious and voluntary authorisation free from force, fraud, duress, misrepresentation or coercion. For its criminal offences it adds two rules that matter to anyone who has ever sent a private photo: agreeing to an image being made is not agreeing to its publication, and sharing it with one person is not consent for that person to publish it.
Creators need to read one more clause. The criminal offence for adults in Section 2 applies only where what is shown was not voluntarily exposed in a public or commercial setting. Section 3's removal duty is worded around depictions published without consent, but platforms decide what counts as a valid request. Reddit's Take It Down Act page, for example, sends commercial adult content creators to its copyright complaint form instead. In practice: use this process for private images and for deepfakes, expect copied paid content to be routed to copyright, and get legal advice where the line is unclear. The copyright takedown evidence pack covers that second route.
Platforms also implement the law differently. Reddit offers its dedicated form to people located in the US. Meta's NCII reporting page, read on 1 October 2026, said its specialised form was available to residents of Texas and Florida and was being extended to all US residents, with ordinary reporting available to everyone. Read the current page for the platform you are dealing with before you send anything.
Valid-request checklist
The first four items are the written contents Section 3 requires. The rest make a request easier to act on and easier to prove later.
- A physical or electronic signature from you or your authorised representative. Reddit, for one, asks for your full legal signature.
- An identification of the image and information reasonably sufficient for the platform to locate it: direct post links, message links, usernames and dates.
- A brief statement that you have a good-faith belief the depiction is not consensual, plus any facts that help the platform see it was published without your consent.
- Contact details sufficient for the platform to reach you or your representative.
- Submission through the platform's designated process, because the removal duty attaches to requests made that way.
- One request per platform, with every location on that platform listed in it.
- A statement of authority if a lawyer, parent or trusted person is filing for you.
- A case email address used only for this matter, so replies do not land in an inbox other people can read.
- No attached copy of the image unless the form specifically asks for one.
- A saved copy of what you sent, the time you sent it with your time zone, and any request number the platform gives you.
A removal request template
Most platforms use a web form, so paste these sections into the matching fields. Where a platform only accepts email, send the whole text. Replace everything in square brackets and delete lines that do not apply.
Subject: Take It Down Act notification and removal request
I am the person shown in the intimate visual depiction identified below [or: I am authorised to act for the person shown, and my authority is: describe it]. I am submitting this notification and request for removal under Section 3 of the TAKE IT DOWN Act.
Location of the depiction: [direct link to each post, image or message]; [account name that posted it]; [date and time first seen, with time zone].
Statement: I have a good-faith belief that the intimate visual depiction identified above is not consensual and was published without my consent. [Optional facts: it was shared privately with one person and posted without permission; or it is a digital forgery created from my photos without my consent.]
Request: please remove the depiction and make reasonable efforts to identify and remove known identical copies, and tell me the outcome and your reference number.
Contact: [case email address].
Signature: [full legal name typed as an electronic signature], [date].
Keep the facts short and true. A request that overstates what happened is harder to defend if the platform asks questions, and the statement is about your belief, not a legal conclusion.
Follow-up and escalation timeline
Run the timeline once per platform. The FTC says platforms should give each request an identifying number and tell you whether the content was removed or why not, so ask for both if they are missing.
| When | What to do | What to record | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before sending | Capture each link, the posting account and the surrounding page, then find the platform's removal notice | Links, screenshots with the address bar visible, the platform's process page | FTC consumer advice |
| On submission | File through the designated form or the report option on the post itself | Confirmation screen, request number, exact time sent | FTC business guidance |
| 48 hours after a valid request | Check every reported link while signed out, and look for obvious identical copies on the same platform | Removed, still live, or new location, with the time checked | Act, Section 3 |
| Still live, or no working process | Report the platform at TakeItDown.ftc.gov; one report can cover up to five images on the same platform | The downloaded copy of your FTC report | FTC reporting video |
| Alongside removal | Fingerprint private images with StopNCII and ask search engines to delist pages | StopNCII case details, search request IDs | StopNCII FAQ |
| If threats or extortion appear | Stop replying, do not pay, report the person to local police and the FBI | Police or FBI reference, preserved messages | FTC blackmail advice |
If a removed image returns at a new address, that is a new location and needs its own request, with the earlier request number quoted. Search engines are a separate step covered in how to remove leaked content from Google.
Reporting a platform to the FTC
The FTC does not take images down itself; TakeItDown.ftc.gov says only platforms can do that. What the FTC does is collect reports and use them to investigate and bring cases. Its consumer pages describe two reportable failures: a platform that leaves the image or its identical copies up beyond the deadline, and a platform with no removal process or one that is broken. The FTC also says a platform that makes you create an account just to request removal should be reported.
The report asks which platform you are reporting, where the image is posted and what happened when you tried to get it removed. You choose how much to share about yourself, and the FTC's May 2026 consumer alert says you can report on behalf of someone else if they have given you permission. Download the copy offered at the end and file it with your request records. A violation is treated as breaching an FTC rule, and the FTC's business guidance puts potential civil penalties at $53,088 per violation.
When to involve police or a lawyer
Publishing these images, and threatening to, can be a federal crime under Section 2 of the Act, separate from the platform's removal duty. Contact local police and the FBI if someone is threatening to publish, demanding money or more images, or stalking you; the FTC lists tips.fbi.gov for this. If anyone shown was under 18, report to NCMEC's CyberTipline and do not keep or share copies. Creators outside the US who face threats can also use the sextortion safety steps.
Speak to a lawyer before you go further if you know who posted the material, if a platform disputes whether your request is valid, if your content was commercial and the consent picture is mixed, or if you want to sue. State laws on intimate images also differ, and a lawyer can tell you which apply.
Limitations of the Act and of this guide
The Act is a US law enforced by the FTC, and how far it reaches platforms run from other countries is not settled by anything on this page. It does not cover email, it binds only covered platforms, and it does not delete copies held on services outside its scope. Platforms judge validity first, so a request can be refused for missing details. The FTC chooses which reports to pursue, and the timing of any enforcement is up to it. This guide reflects the statute and FTC pages as published on 1 October 2026 and is general information, not legal advice.