Federal Bill Would Criminalize Revenge Porn Websites

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a thought-provoking article at TechDirt: "My own representative in Congress, Jackie Speier, has apparently decided to introduce a federal 'revenge porn' bill, which is being drafted, in part, by Prof. Mary Anne Franks, who has flat out admitted that her goal is to undermine Section 230 protections for websites (protecting them from liability of actions by third parties) to make them liable for others' actions. Now, I've never written about Franks before, but the last time I linked to a story about her in a different post, she went ballistic on Twitter, attacking me in all sorts of misleading ways. So, let me just be very clear about this. Here's what she has said: '"The impact [of a federal law] for victims would be immediate," Franks said. "If it became a federal criminal law that you can't engage in this type of behavior, potentially Google, any website, Verizon, any of these entities might have to face liability for violations.' That makes it clear her intent is to undermine Section 230 and make third parties — like 'Google, any website, Verizon... face liability.'"

Comments

Freedom of Speech?

[mi]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And, as we learned from "People vs. Larry Flint" (and other, less popular, sources), porn is speech...

However disgusting, "revenge porn" ought to remain legal...

Re:Freedom of Speech?

[ackthpt]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And, as we learned from "People vs. Larry Flint" (and other, less popular, sources), porn is speech...

However disgusting, "revenge porn" ought to remain legal...

Cough. Your freedoms end where other's begin. Cough.

Re:Freedom of Speech?

[fermion]

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.

In the Larry Flynt case the naked women were deemed to be adults who allowed their image be taken and printed. He likely did the paper work for releases, and photographed the women overtly and with full knowledge that the images would be published. Honestly the freedom of speech that was being protected in that case were of the women, not of Flint. A negative ruling would have meant that an adult women, or in the case of hustler many men, would no longer be able to expose herself or be penetrated for compensation.

So the cases are not really comparable. In revenge porn the images may not have taken overtly. In revenge porn the woman might not have agreed to have the images spread beyond the local area. Furthermore, it might a violation of copyright. If the victim did know that she or he was being filmed, there is no guarantee that victim was not in fact the one who made arrangement for the film to be made and in fact the person with copyright. The person who releases the film may just be an participant who did not own the camera, or set up the production, and therefore has not right to communicate the film to the public.

So to be clear if a person arranged to video themselves masturbating or having sex with partner(s) that are aware the video is going public, then stopping that would be a violation of free speech, but otherwise not. If we did accept your argument, then we would also have to accept that it would be a violation of free speech to film film young girls in a dressing room or to take covertly film women going up an escalator so we can see up their dresses. In both cases, this is not acceptable, and the former is is not only because of age issues.

Re:Freedom of Speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Other's freedom not to appear on porn sites if they never consented to it.

Re:Freedom of Speech?

[MightyMartian]

Uphold != interpret

Re:Freedom of Speech?

[Artifakt]

The first amendment guarantees that my speech (c)an never (legally) be restricted, constrained, repressed, silenced, censored, etc. by the government. Never.
Slander someone? Libel them? Threaten immediate bodily harm? Extort? Divulge information during a trial despite court order? Reveal medical or financial information you become privy to in an official capacity? Speak against the authority of a judge or other court official in proceedings? Display contempt for said judge in open court? Swear at or otherwise intimidate a person being constrained to remain on the spot by law enforcement? ,Just interrupt or speak over the speech of a person being questioned by law enforcement at the time? Verbally challenge the policeman him or herself during his or her otherwise legitimate excercise of police powers? Give verbal aid or comfort to an enemy nation during time of war

Oh yeah, the First Amendment supports your right to do any or all of those, and a pig buzzed me at Mach 3 yesterday.
Hint - there is one social contract - the law.
Hint 2 - you obviously know nothing about that.

Re:Freedom of Speech?

[pla]

Cough. Your freedoms end where other's begin. Cough.

So far, virtually all the discussion on this topic has centered around the rights of the victim. I apologize for responding to you personally, but you have the most visible post continuing the "wrong" discussion here. :)

The problem here has nothing to do with whether or not we should condemn the concept of "revenge" porn, but rather, whether a website should bear liability for content posted by a third party. That should scare the hell out of all of us, liberal or conservative, pro-porn or feminist, rich or poor.

Look beyond porn for the implications of this - Should Amazon bear criminal liability for allowing a joking review that says "this blender turns lead into gold" to remain? Should Yelp need to fact check every single review of some rat-trap motel or suffer liability for defamation? If a blogger dares to criticize Italian or French judges for their sham of a legal system, should Wordpress' CEO (or given what I just said, Dice's CEO) go to prison? And those don't even get into the issue of search engines, where literally everything on the internet can show up - Do we really expect Google to bear the burden of making sure no one has posted something incorrect or illegal on the entire internet?

If so... Goodbye, Internet (at least in the US - Which still effectively means "Goodbye, Intenet"). Section 230 means more than a loophole for pesky websites to intentionally look the other way - It makes the entire concept of public participation in a shared discussion possible.

Re:Freedom of Speech?

[Lord Kano]

It's not defamation of character if what you say is true.

Basically, if you're not photoshopping someone's head onto another body, revenge porn is not defamation.

LK