In a move sure to break the hearts of pathetic, miserable SOBs throughout the land of Lincoln, the state of Illinois is moving to ban revenge porn.
The bill, introduced by State Sen. Michael Hastings on Wednesday, would amend the criminal code to make it a felony to “knowingly place, post, or reproduce on the Internet a photograph, video, or digital image of a person in a state of nudity, in a state of sexual excitement, or engaged in any act of sexual conduct or sexual penetration, without the knowledge and consent of that person.”
In case the name doesn’t make the concept pretty clear, revenge porn is photos or videos distributed without the consent – or often even knowledge – of one or more of the participants. In the past several years, it has become a big business for entrepreneurs like, most famously, Hunter Moore – who was indicted last week on felony charges including “conspiracy, computer hacking, aggravated identity theft, and aiding and abetting.” Another revenge porn kingpin, Kevin Bollaert, was arrested in California in December on similar charges. Revenge porn is a popular ploy of unhappy exes and mischief making hackers and their voyeuristic fans, a great many of whom apparently find a thrill in pleasuring themselves to purloined images of “cheating whores” and “nasty sluts.” When porn involving consenting, fully aware participants just won’t get you off, revenge porn gives that bit of extra hatred and disgust to do the job. As an ex on one site explains, above a woman’s name, town and a series of photos her in all manner of sexual positions, “I want her to be embarrassed more than she already is once she finds herself on here.”
Incredibly, in most places, this tactic is totally permissible. As PolicyMic explained earlier this week, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act states that “websites are not deemed directly responsible for user-submitted content,” which translates roughly into, if the act itself wasn’t illegal, hey, do whatever you want. But that’s changing.
[…] The end of “revenge porn”: Legal challenges mean consequences for creeps […]
I would certainly hope that this law would also apply to those who photoshop images that FALSELY depict people in the nude on blogs and other websites as well.
The problem with these laws is that they are too vague. Like from the wording of the NJ law, from that article, a person could be charged for taking a pic from one tumblr acct and putting it on their own or retweeting something.
The CA law? I can’t wait until a bitter, mental ex proxies and posts her own pics on the net so she can ruin the life of some poor sap who is happy to be rid of her.