Revenge smut bullies who send 'grossly offensive' messages WILL be prosecuted

Prosecutors in England and Wales now have access to revised legal guidelines to help them tackle the online bullying stunt popularly dubbed "revenge porn". An update to existing advice on communications sent on social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, was announced by the Crown Prosecution Service on Monday. Current …

[AndyS]

Um...

websites... readily promoted by search engines such as Google and Yahoo

What have we here, another politician who doesn't understand how search engines work?

[Matt 21]

Re: Um...

...but does know how to make the most out of a "high profile problem" which only effects a tiny proportion of the population while completely failing to do anything to help the majority.

[Anonymous Coward]

the growing problem faced by adult women in this country who have had sexually explicit pictures of themselves posted online

Why say "adult women", when revenge porn can affect anyone, adult, child, man or woman? Is it because you actually don't give a fuck about it and just blather about whatever mumsnet are lobbying on this week?

[Martin]

Because, at a guess, I'd say it's likely that 99% of all "revenge porn" is perpetrated by men against their female ex-partners. It is certainly true that 100% of all the instances I have ever heard of were perpetrated by men against their female ex-partners.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascinating, do you have any anecdotes about IS that we can use to make policy on too?

[P. Lee]

Despite the downvotes, I suspect you're correct. Women will gossip to their friends, men turn to their computers from my (limited) experience.

Historically, we tried to protect both sexes from this kind of behaviour by saying, "don't have sex with someone who hasn't committed to you for life." It may not eradicate the problem (given the disdain for marriage these days) but it gets rid of an awful lot of it.

Do people want to follow that advice? No, they want to be "free." Guess what? If you expose yourself to someone, even in private, you've just massively upped your "attack-surface". Old fashioned morality wasn't created to spoil people's fun, despite what many people think. It's there because it's good for you.

Crying to Google to erase the consequences of your actions is too little, too late. Freedom cuts both ways. It's great, I'm all for freedom, but self-control has to match it or people get hurt.

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

"Old fashioned morality wasn't created to spoil people's fun, despite what many people think. It's there because it's good for you."

It was never there because it was good for you. It existed as it provided stability for the societies of the time and made them controllable, given the low average levels of education, medical knowledge and technology.

As societies evolve and become more sophisticated and advanced, a lot of old rules becomes obsolete and only destabilises them instead. In a similar way to rules that make sense for controlling pre-school children not being suitable for teens or adults.

[Patrick R]

re: revenge porn can affect anyone

Children... "who have had sexually explicit pictures of themselves posted online" is obviously considered an other problem that comes under already existing legislation.

[silent_count]

Re: re: revenge porn can affect anyone

@Patrick R

The issue with explicit photos of children is that children are deemed too immature to be able to provide consent.

The issue with explicit photos of adults is that adults are deemed too immature to be able to provide consent.

It's a good thing that it's Ms Miller who makes that argument because if it were a bloke saying that (predominantly) women are too stupid to make their own decisions, he'd be considered sexist and there would be large sections of the mainstream media baying for his resignation.

[NumptyScrub]

Re: re: revenge porn can affect anyone

quote: "The issue with explicit photos of adults is that adults are deemed too immature to be able to provide consent."

There is a difference between consenting that your partner has an explicit image of you for personal use, and consenting that your partner can freely distribute an explicit image of you to the public.

You know, like movie studios letting you buy a DVD, but throwing a wobbly if you then post it on the internet. As long as you ensure you are the copyright holder for any explicit image, you are then entitled to the full protection of the law regarding the control of its distribution.

Of course what we apparently need is more badly worded legislation to cover specific circumstances, rather than ensuring that existing legislation can cover the requirements, because politicians need to be seen to be "doing something" in the run up to an election.

[Colin Brett]

Re: re: revenge porn can affect anyone

"Of course what we apparently need is more badly worded legislation to cover specific circumstances, rather than ensuring that existing legislation can cover the requirements, because politicians need to be seen to be "doing something" in the run up to an election."

And this, in a nut shell, is the reason we will be seeing many more instances of politicians making such claims over the next few months. All they want is face-time on camera as a means to keeping their jobs.

Make your MP work. Don't re-elect him.

Colin

[Lamont Cranston]

@silent_count

Children can't give consent to having explicit photos taken (because they're children, and are protected against this sort of thing by existing laws); adults can give that consent (because they're adults), but that does not equate to consenting to have those same photos splurged over the internet.

Nothing sexist in that.

Focus is being placed on women, I expect, because they're more likely to be victims of this sort of thing, but it wouldn't necessarily follow that this would be women-only legislation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: re: revenge porn can affect anyone

Not all adults do give consent, some people hide cameras around the place specifically for the purpose of documenting their "achievements" and in these kinds of case no consent is given. Also if someone decides to start videoing with their phone and their partner doesn't notice at first then asks them not to, some people will just keep the video anyway. Cameras are small and ubiquitous now.

The fact is that a proportion of people are sleazebags and the internet provides them with an echo chamber. They don't advertise the fact and potential partners may not realise it until it is too late.

I'm a big fan of people doing whatever they want within the limits of consent, breaching that in any direction is bad news. The ideal situation would be for someone who did that to - at the very least - lose their anonymity so that other potential partners would be aware of their favoured predilections.

In the utopian long term future, maybe there will be acceptance that sexy times are super great and there is nothing embarrassing about having the body parts required for them, taking part in them or enjoying them.

[Anonymous Coward]

My advice

To *any* person is, take photos of the other person or no photos allowed at all. It's a shame have to give this advice of course, but there are to many immature people out there. But having photos in your possession maybe it would work as a good deterrent.

[teebie]

Re: My advice

I'm not sure how effective mutually assured destruction would be. The people who post revenge porn will often be so angry, or such bellends, that they won't be thinking of potential consequences to themselves.

[scrubber]

UK based global policy?

"If revenge pornography were clearly illegal, they would, I am sure, ensure that such sites could not be promoted through their search engines."

So just because you make someone in the UK doing something illegal you want Google et al. to stop including sites in other countries where this is perfectly legal (like the UK currently) in their results?

Idiot.

[Jim 59]

Off topic, but to anyone considering committing their nude selves to electronic storage, especially while performing any kind of "act" or whatever: apply a common sense algorithm. Don't do it.

Electronic pictures and movies can be circulated, copied and broadcast without limit, including accidentally. Revenge is one possibility but there are many others: a computer can be discarded, go to a repair shop, be infected with malware, backed up, an SD card or phone can be lost, forgotten about, stolen, discarded in error. Even if you encrypt, delete or "shred" the pics, copies can still hang around. Don't. Do. It.

[Anonymous Coward]

Change in the law?

"These are ordinary women who have been in loving relationships in which nude or sexually explicit pictures have been taken in private, something that is not YET illegal..."

There fixed it.

[Graham Marsden]

@AC - Re: Change in the law?

Of course the fact is that *some* such pictures, even if of entirely legal acts, can be considered illegal if they fall under the Extreme Porn legislation...

[JP19]

"mainly used against women"

Because most blokes wouldn't care.

So which half of the equal sexes is wrong - blokes should care more or women less?

[Triggerfish]

Re: "mainly used against women"

How about people act a bit decent and if you do have a nuddy of an ex, don't be a twat with it.

[Obitim]

Unfortunately Falling at the First Hurdle

You're expecting people not to be twats...

[Triggerfish]

Re: Unfortunately Falling at the First Hurdle

I know sometimes I have unreasonable expectations of the human race.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "mainly used against women"

"Because most blokes wouldn't care."

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, sure sure!

"So which half of the equal sexes is wrong - blokes should care more or women less?"

I suspect that you are one of the kind who love to say the word slut...

[Jediben]

This is a copyright issue

If you posed for the picture but someone else took the photo, it's not your photo to complain about if it is shown around. By all means take selfies (keeping the copyright to yourself, store them on a non-networked product and avoid saving them to the Cloud, natch) but don't let someone take pictures of you in the nud if you aren't sure you trust/want someone/anyone else to have them. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

[Obitim]

Re: This is a copyright issue

Surely it's a decency issue?

[MisterHappy]

Re: This is a copyright issue

Have an upvote... I was gonna say the same thing.

[lucki bstard]

I suppose this really comes down to basic common sense. Once that photo is taken you have no control on what happens to it. As have been proven by the recent splash of celebrity nude pics, if you put something online including storage, there is no guarantee that it will not be misused by some one else. The proposed guidelines seem great in theory, but how can they be implemented; when privacy is so weak? And there are many people out there who are ignorant about the security safeguards.

For the real paranoid NSA employees routinely pass around nude pictures (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/snowden-nsa-employees-routinely-pass-around-intercepted-nude-photos/); and as for being able to trust your partner well Ashley Madison made $40M profits last year (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/02/adultery-site-big-in-japa_0_n_5078470.html); so not all partners are trust worthy.

Also how does copyright law affect this, are these orphaned works so essentially public domain?

Will this only effect those who post photo's along the line of 'My name is <insert name>, and these are photos of my ex <insert name>.

Apologies for the rambling but I'm cuddled up to a lemsip atm and writing this between red dwarf episodes

[Jediben]

You're writing Red Dwarf episodes?! Make sure they are better than those Dave 'specials'!

[Old Handle]

'Indecent'

That 1988 law actually sounds fairly suitable. Revenge porn is indecent and has intent to cause distress. But if anything, the 2003 law tends to undermine that by banning all 'indecent' messages. If Alice sends Bob a naked selfie, either that's a crime, or it's not a crime when Bob posts it online. It sounds like they're trying for some wiggle room by talkijg about considering the "whole message", but if the photo is simply passed on with minimal commentary, I don't see how that will help.

[Anonymous Coward]

Difficult to see how you could make a law against this

Children don't even need to be mentioned, explicit pictures of underage people are already carrying some pretty stiff penalties so there's no need to codify it into a separate revenge porn law.

But how exactly does it work if a woman consents to having her picture taken by a guy, they later break up, and the guy still has those pictures. Should it be illegal for him to show them to his friends? Illegal to post it on a personal web site? Illegal to send to her parents and boss? Where do you draw the line?

You obviously have to stop it being used as blackmail ("agree to sole custody of our kid or I'll send all these pictures to your family, your minister, and everyone at your workplace") but should it be illegal for him to even show them (not send, show) to his best friend?

If the law is written too tightly mere possession of the images could be criminalized, and you could have the reverse problem of the woman using it against the man figuring he probably didn't think to delete them.

They definitely shouldn't get into the business of deciding how "offensive" the images are. A swinger may not care if pictures of her having sex are posted all over the internet, and more women wouldn't be bothered by nude pictures of themselves. Others might be horrified by the thought of people seeing that picture of her that shows a hint of nipple, or when she was caught in a rainstorm and you can see her underwear through her dress.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Difficult to see how you could make a law against this

That won't stop them trying.

There are still so many things they have yet to ban.

It'll be so much easier once Theresa May has implemented her police state...

[Steven Holmquist]

If I understand correctly...

What this means is that if I get my ex to have signed a model release for said pics before kicking her to the curb, then I'm perfectly fine and safe from this legislation even if it could be thought of as Revenge Porn, Yes?

Remember gents, get it in writing when you snap those holiday pics!

[teebie]

Re: If I understand correctly...

No, a model release would make a difference in a copyright case, but not any of the crimes covered in the new guidelines.

[h3]

It should be seen as an asset. Like other things are when it comes to divorce sold and the proceeds added before the women gets the best deal anyway.

[NeilPost]

More Rotherhams

Meanwhile, real criminal activity like Rotherham child sexual exploitation was allowed to flourish, and most internet fraudsters go largely scott free.

The police have latched strongly onto easy/lazy internet crime, whereas this has been going on since the days of AOL and dial up.