By SHAWN MCCREESH NYTimes News Service
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The president and first lady appeared together in the White House Rose Garden on Monday afternoon so he could sign into law a piece of revenge porn legislation that she championed.

“I want to thank my husband, President Trump, for standing with us on this effort,” Melania Trump said, a riot of pink roses in bloom behind her.

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The bill, known as the Take It Down Act, mandates that social media platforms remove sexually explicit images and videos of others that were taken or posted without consent, including artificial intelligence-generated deepfake content, within two days of being notified of them. It was written with teenage victims in mind.

“Artificial Intelligence and social media are the digital candy for the next generation — sweet, addictive and engineered to have an impact on the cognitive development of our children,” the first lady said. “But unlike sugar, these new technologies can be weaponized, shape beliefs and, sadly, affect emotions and even be deadly.”

She had been pushing for the passage of this bill pretty much since the day of her husband’s second inauguration, when it was first brought up to her by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., during an Inauguration Day lunch. The bill dovetailed neatly with Be Best, the first lady’s anti-cyberbullying initiative from the first Trump term.

In early March, she made a rare appearance in Washington to hold a roundtable on Capitol Hill with girls who had been victims of online smear campaigns, as well as the father of a young boy who died by suicide as a result of online “sextortion.” It was emotionally charged, teary at times, and the next day, the first lady took some of those guests with her to the House chamber to watch the president’s address to Congress, in which he mentioned the bill.

The passage of the Take It Down Act represented a rare moment of comity in the capital, clearing with overwhelming bipartisan support, 409-2. It was introduced by Klobuchar and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

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