Social media has become a huge part of everyone’s day-to-day lives. Today millions of people use the Internet to express themselves; with the touch of a button they can upload pictures, videos, and post comments. Social media has many advantages at keeping people connected and sharing information, however when used inappropriately it can have a lot of negative affects.

Sexting, sending explicit photos of yourself to someone, has grown in popularity with the growth of social media. When these photos are in the hands of a pissed off ex, they are being uploaded to the Internet without the persons consent. This concept is known as revenge porn, and is a prime example of a negative aspect of social media. Victims of revenge porn are starting to fight back and want a law created to protect others from these attacks.

There are already several laws in place that help victims of revenge porn to a certain extent. The legal actions someone could take in these situations are civil tort actions, DMCA takedowns, criminal statuses against extortion, and some federal laws that allow FBI to access control of the sites the photos are uploaded to (Jeong). Although victims can fight in civil courts to get justice, that costs them money in lawyers and time spent fighting for justice. The victims want criminal justice for their suffering. Their reputation is forever because future employees and relationships will see these photos and a lot will judge the person for them.

The other side argues that the victim isn’t really a victim at all cause they choose to send the explicit photo in the first place, and it’s their own fault that it got on the Internet. Some think that sending people jail for posting photos of their ex out of anger is like sending people to jail for talking bad about their ex after they break up. They believe that by criminalizing revenge porn you are creating victims where there is none.

Revenge porn can be devastating for the victims and is certainly a form of bullying and harassment. Whether revenge porn should be a criminal offense differs in people’s minds. Social media is a very powerful tool and can become negative if used incorrectly.

other articles to check out on revenge porn and the sources I used:

Jeong, Sarah. “Revenge Porn Is Bad. Criminalizing It Is Worse.” Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 28 Oct. 0013. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.

Franks, Mary Anne. “Criminalizing Revenge Porn: A Quick Guide.” Available at SSRN (2013).