POSTED BY Christopher Barnett on October 4, 2013
If you were ever deep in the throes of love, chances are you exchanged one or two scandalous homemade pictures or videos with your lover. If and when that relationship ever ended, the future of those pictures no doubt weighed on your mind. Would they post it somewhere? How would you know and what could you do? Well, you can rest easy if you live in California, because posting “revenge porn” now comes with jail time. S.B. 255, 2013-14 Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2013).
On October 1st, California Governor Jerry Brown signed bill SB 255 that made it a misdemeanor to distribute “a consensually taken image of an identifiable person in a state of full or partial undress when the image is distributed with the intent to cause serious emotional distress, and the person suffers such distress.” S.B. 255, 2013-14 Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2013). Nicknamed the “revenge porn” bill, any person convicted of violating this bill could spend up to six months in jail and/or pay up to a $1000 fine. S.B. 255, 2013-14 Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2013). Commit this misdemeanor twice and the offender faces up to double the punishment.
Among the legislative comments was a recent California Court of Appeals case that illustrates just how “revenge porn” affects people. In People v. Rosa, victim Jennifer Tuig’s scorned ex-husband had posted nude images of her on a personal ad website. People v. Rosa, 2013 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 1815, *3-8 (Cal. Ct. App. Mar. 12, 2013). Jennifer received dozens of phone calls and in-person solicitations for sex in response to the ad. Id. at *4-5. Jennifer’s husband was ultimately tried and convicted of a litany of charges. Id. at *9-10.
This new bill has the potential to put naïve lovers at ease. Users of mobile application Snapchat can send and receive photos and videos to view for less than 10 seconds. These pictures, however, can still be saved by recipients that take a screenshot with their mobile phone, and then save and upload those pictures to the internet. If this legislation was enacted in other states, it may make people think twice about getting revenge on ex-lovers by posting such material. The bill is a step in the right direction in protecting Americans’ online identities. There is some criticism, however, criminalizing free speech in violation of the First Amendment by potentially criminalizing victimless instances. New Jersey is the only other state to have passed such a bill, so we may be a long way off from any high court litigation. For now, Californian and New Jersey residents, you can rest a little easier tonight.
