Techdirt. Stories filed under "sexting" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "sexting"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:31:39 PDT Court Rejects PA DAs Attempt To Charge Teens For Sexting Themselves Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100318/0023508613.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100318/0023508613.shtml bring child porn charges against some teenage girls who had taken some "nude and seminude" photos of themselves with cameraphones and sent them to others. The case was complicated in that after school officials turned over the evidence to the district attorney, the DA's office told the girls that they could avoid charges if they agreed to a special afterschool "education program." Some of the girls refused, and the prosecutor tried to charge them. This raised an outcry from many who felt it was ridiculous to charge kids with child pornography for taking photos of themselves. The judges in the case blocked the prosecutor from filing charges, but rather than take the hint, the prosecutor tried again with an appeal.

It looks like that was a dead end too. The appeals court unanimously ruled against the DA and criticized them for their efforts to bring charges against these girls. This case won't necessarily directly apply to other similar cases -- as much of the reasoning had to do with the requirement to take this class and write an essay about why what they did was "wrong," which was judged to be compelled speech, violating the First Amendment. Furthermore, the fact that the lawsuit was seen as retaliating for not obeying the order to take the class was also problematic. So, it's likely we'll still see other cases involving "sexting," where teenagers are accused of creating child porn of themselves.

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]]> common-sense-prevails http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100318/0023508613 Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:11:00 PST Indiana Senators Rush To Put In Place Sexting Law When They Clearly Don't Understand Sexting Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100127/0424477914.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100127/0424477914.shtml decided to tackle the issue with new legislation, though it's not at all clear that the state Senators debating the subject even understand what sexting means:
"Until some terrible tragedy happens where a child or teenager commits suicide because they have been bullied by e-mail, texting or sexting," said Rep. Sandra Blanton.
Bullied by sexting will lead to suicide? How? And how do you create a law to prevent that? Then there's the politician who wants to ban mobile phones in schools to deal with this issue:
"Keep them in lockers and not allow them in the classroom or on school property to do the sexting," Rep. Blanton said.
Really? The sexting happens on school property? If that's the case, then wouldn't the issue be public nudity -- for which I would imagine there are already laws -- rather than "sexting"? If he just means that the sending of these photos continues on school property, I'm not really sure how keeping the phones in lockers fixes anything. It just means those messages will be sent after school when there's even less supervision of what the kids are doing. I guess that's the head-in-the-sand approach to dealing with things, but I'm not sure how it helps any.

Certainly the issue of sexting is one worth educating kids about, so they recognize the dangers of passing on such photos which can quickly multiply and be spread further in amazingly embarrassing ways. But I don't see how any law helps the issue at all -- but plenty of ways laws can make things worse -- especially when the politicians writing and voting on the laws don't even seem to understand what the issue is beyond "sexting = bad!"

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]]> moral-panics! http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100127/0424477914 Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:57:43 PST Prosecutors Still Want To Charge Girl Who Sent Naked Photo Of Herself For Child Porn Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100115/1500557776.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100115/1500557776.shtml charge some girls who had taken either nude or partially unclothed photos of themselves, and then sent them via their mobile phones, with "child porn" charges. This seems pretty ridiculous no matter how you look at it, and it was good that a judge temporarily blocked the prosecutor from moving forward. You would hope that this would give the prosecutor a chance to rethink this idea, and perhaps realize that it's beyond extreme.

Instead? The prosecutor is appealing the ruling and still wants to charge at least one girl with child porn charges. The ACLU is fighting back, not just for this particular girl, but apparently over the threats of felony charges on 16-girls, who were then forced to participate in a "re-education" class to avoid charges. I have no problem with children being educated about why such things are really bad ideas, but to threaten them with felony charges, especially when even the mothers of one of the girls says that photos were just some girls goofing around, and in most cases no worse than what you'd find it a typical Victoria's Secret catalog? That seems like a prosecutor going too far.

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]]> crime-and-punishment http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100115/1500557776 Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:33:00 PDT Is Casio Aiming For The Sexter Market With Its Latest Phone? Carlo Longino http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090410/1101494462.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090410/1101494462.shtml moral panics du jour. While some people are working themselves into a lather over it, one can't help but wonder if Casio is trying to pitch its latest mobile handset to the teen sexter market with a couple of YouTube videos called "Sexy girl in the shower" and "Money shot." The videos have since been yanked, but the former touted the handset's waterproofing and 5-megapixel camera by showing -- no prizes for guessing -- a girl using it in the shower to talk and take a photo of herself. We won't get in to the content of the second ad, but suffice to say it's not something very many companies would be too comfortable with. Sure, showing somebody using a phone in the shower sounds like a great way to promote a waterproof handset, but given the sexting uproar, perhaps Casio's timing (and/or judgment) was a little off.

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]]> serious-questions http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090410/1101494462 Thu, 9 Apr 2009 03:13:00 PDT When Does It Stop Being 'Sexting' And Start Being Something More Serious? Carlo Longino http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090408/1002454435.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090408/1002454435.shtml here at Techdirt and elsewhere. One of the major points of contention has been that child-pornography laws don't make any distinction about who creates child porn, meaning that kids who take nude photos of themselves and send them out can be viewed in the same way -- in the eyes of the law -- as child pornographers who abuse and exploit children for commercial gain or personal titillation. The catch is that "the eyes of the law" are really the eyes of human prosecutors, who hopefully should realize that charging kids with child-porn offenses is an overreaction. CNN's got a story touching on this issue, but they didn't find a particularly good example: instead of talking about kids who took pictures of themselves, they lead with the story of an 18-year-old guy who sent out a nude picture of his 16-year-old girlfriend to "dozens" of friends and family after they'd had a fight. The guy was subsequently prosecuted under child-porn laws and has had to register as a sex offender. While it's clear the guy wasn't a commercial porn producer, it's also clear that he went a lot further than teens who take photos of themselves, send them out, and then find themselves in hot water. His actions, while caused by a moment of stupidity, were intended to hurt his girlfriend -- much different than teens taking and sending photos of themselves as an expression of their sexuality. To compare the two seems pretty disingenuous, and it's hard to imagine the guy will attract a whole lot of sympathy, but the story does illustrate the very black-and-white world of child porn laws, and how they can be applied with little distinction (or perhaps common sense) by some prosecutors.

Meanwhile, over at the WSJ, the "Numbers Guy", Carl Bialik, has taken a look at the survey that has been widely cited in sexting stories, claiming that 20 percent of teens have taken and sent nude photos of themselves. Bialik points out that the survey was conducted online, calling into question just how representative of the wider teen population the sample was. To ask teens about their online behavior, but only ask teens who are online, seems suspect. But hey, the stat sells the story, right?

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]]> gray-areas http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090408/1002454435 Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:17:01 PDT Judge Blocks Charges In Pennsylvania Sexting Case Carlo Longino http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090331/0736084324.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090331/0736084324.shtml charges against some girls who'd taken some photos of themselves, topless and in underwear, and sent them to some boys. Last week, three of the girls sued the prosecutor with the help of the ACLU, and a federal judge has put a temporary restraining order on the prosecutor, preventing him from filing charges, while the lawsuit proceeds. While not making any sort of final, binding judgment, the judge said that the girls' contention that the photos -- which reportedly show the two girls in their bras, and one topless with a towel around her waist -- "do not appear to qualify in any way as depictions of prohibited sexual acts" was a reasonable one. That's potentially a big distinction: there's been a persistent line of argument in the comments on the earlier posts that child pornography laws don't allow any wiggle room, no matter how young the producer, or if they're taking pictures or videos of themselves. But if the images in question aren't even considered pornographic under the law, it would certainly appear that the prosecutor doesn't have much to stand on.

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]]> where's-the-porn? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090331/0736084324