(TNND) — The complicated battle against traumatizing and exploitative sexual imagery posted online without consent got some help with the passage of the "Take It Down Act."

The bill can’t reverse the hurt already caused by revenge porn and deepfake abuse.

But youth mental health expert Katie Hurley said the bill offers a protective layer for everyone using online spaces.

The "Take It Down Act" addresses image-based sexual abuse or assault.

“It's important to contextualize it that way, so that we're really thinking about the profound effects it can have on people of any age,” said Hurley, a licensed clinical social worker and the senior director of clinical advising and community programs at The Jed Foundation (JED), an organization focused on mental health for teens and young adults.

First lady Melania Trump championed the bill, which passed the Senate in February and the House this week with bipartisan support.

The House passed the "Take It Down Act" 409-2, with two Republican lawmakers voting against the bill.

All it needs now to become law is President Donald Trump’s signature.

The bill criminalizes the publication of nonconsensual sexual imagery, including artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes.

It also requires websites to remove such content within 48 hours of notification from a victim.

Anton Dahbura, the executive director of the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, said the intent of the bill “is extremely worthwhile,” but he said enforcement can be tricky.

And while 48 hours seems like a long time for a photo to circulate online from a victim’s standpoint, it’s not a lot of time for a big social media company dealing with potentially thousands of similar takedown requests simultaneously.

“Deepfakes of all types can be quite damaging,” Dahbura said. “So, it doesn't have to be sexual or pornographic. It can put someone in a different place. It can have words coming out of their mouth that they never said. They can be with people that they were never with, and so on. It's really limited by people's imaginations, and that's it. So, this law addresses part of the problem, but certainly not the entirety of the problem.”

Neither the technology industry nor the government is really prepared to properly protect people from this kind of activity, he said.

"Realistically, it's going to take technology to counter the technology," Dahbura said. "Because I think doing it with humans is not practical at scale."

The lawmakers said the nonconsensual intimate imagery addressed in this bill can include realistic, computer-generated pornographic images and videos that depict identifiable, real people.

The bill also stated that a person isn’t consenting to the publication of a real intimate photo just because they consented to its creation.

The first lady joined lawmakers and victims at a roundtable event last month in support of the “Take It Down Act.”

One of those victims, Elliston Berry, said she was just 14 when a boy at her school used AI to create deepfake images of her.

“I knew I could never go back and undo what he did, but I wanted to do anything to help prevent this from happening to others,” Berry said in a news release after the House passage.

Hurley said victims can suffer anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

And distressed victims are at higher risk of suicidal thoughts, she said.

Hurley said a crucial part of the bill is the 48-hour time limit for sites to pull the nonconsensual intimate images offline when alerted.

“When people place their trust in another person with sensitive images, and those images are then altered, released, shared widely, those people struggle to build trusting relationships in the future,” Hurley said.