Lawmakers and a high-profile bipartisan coalition turned up the pressure on the U.S. House on Monday, urging leaders to move fast on the DEFIANCE Act, a measure the Senate recently approved that would let people sue over AI-generated explicit deepfakes. Survivors, advocates and celebrities, including Paris Hilton, joined members of Congress across the aisle in Washington to demand a vote and new legal recourse for victims.
The Senate cleared the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act by unanimous consent on Jan. 13, 2026, a move that backers said shows how urgently Congress wants to rein in abusive AI tools. According to the Office of Sen. Dick Durbin, no senator objected to the unanimous consent request.
“I rise today to ask the Senate to pass the DEFIANCE Act, bipartisan legislation that gives victims of nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfakes the tools they need to fight back,” Durbin said on the Senate floor, according to the Office of Sen. Dick Durbin. He framed the bill as a complement to platform-removal laws and urged the House to finish the job by scheduling a vote.
What the DEFIANCE Act Would Do
The DEFIANCE Act would create a federal civil cause of action for identifiable people depicted in AI-generated intimate images or videos, allowing them to sue anyone who “knowingly produces, distributes, solicits, or possesses with the intent to distribute” such forgeries. As detailed by Congress.gov, the bill expands existing remedies, including injunctive relief and profit recovery, and sets a 10-year statute of limitations that is tolled until discovery or the victim’s 18th birthday.
Why Advocates Are Pushing Now
Supporters say civil remedies are the missing piece after the platform-focused TAKE IT DOWN law, and they returned to the Hill in late January with a high-visibility coalition of lawmakers and survivors. In a press event released by the Office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the group, which included Rep. Laurel Lee and Paris Hilton, urged Speaker Johnson to bring the DEFIANCE Act to the floor. Hilton described the non-consensual sharing of intimate images as “abuse,” not a scandal, as covered by Entertainment Weekly.
Where the Law Fits
The DEFIANCE Act builds on the TAKE IT DOWN Act, a platform-removal law signed last year that targets how intimate images are hosted and shared, by shifting some focus to accountability for individual abusers. According to The White House, the TAKE IT DOWN Act became public law on May 19, 2025. Tech reporting has flagged recent AI image tools, including the Grok chatbot on X, as drivers of renewed urgency, as reported by The Verge.
What Comes Next
To become law, the DEFIANCE Act still has to clear the House and be signed by the president, and sponsors are pressing House leaders to schedule a vote. In a Jan. 22 statement, Ocasio-Cortez urged Speaker Johnson to bring the bill to the floor, according to the Office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. FOX 5 Atlanta reported the bipartisan coalition urging the House to pass the bill on Feb. 15, 2026.
If the House approves the DEFIANCE Act, survivors would gain a federal path to seek damages, injunctions and a recovery of profits tied to abusive images. Until then, advocates say the pressure campaign, from Capitol Hill testimony to celebrity allies, will keep building as lawmakers and tech companies scramble to keep up with rapidly evolving AI harms.
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