Amid a high-profile scandal, Germany considers deepfake porn punishments

NPR | By Rob Schmitz,

Tinbete Ermyas, Jason Fuller

Published April 5, 2026 at 2:37 PM PDT

Congress passed the Take It Down Act in 2024, protecting victims of deepfake revenge pornography. Now, Germany is considering punishing the creators of deepfake porn, not just the distributors, for up to 2 years. NPR's Rob Schmitz speaks with Harvard Law Professor Rebecca Tushnet.

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Rob Schmitz

Rob Schmitz is NPR's international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany's levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic.

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Tinbete Ermyas

Jason Fuller