Al Franken Urges FBI To Prosecute "Revenge Porn"

mi contributes this excerpt from National Journal: "Sen. Al Franken is urging the FBI to more quickly and aggressively pursue and respond to reports of revenge porn, marking a rare burst of attention on a controversial topic about which Congress has typically been quiet. In a letter to FBI Director James Comey, the Minnesota Democrat asked for more information about the agency's authority to police against revenge porn, or the act of posting explicit sexual content online without the subject's consent, often for purposes of humiliation and extortion. Its popularity has ballooned in recent years, and victims are disproportionately women." Here's Franken's letter.

Comments

c'mon

[fyngyrz]

ts popularity has ballooned in recent years, and victims are disproportionately women.

It makes no difference if the victims are disproportionately any group; it would have to be UNIQUE to that group. Otherwise, if it's bad for people, it's bad for people, and no distinction need be made about age, gender or any other subgroup. It's not equality if we only consider some of the people, is it?

Re:c'mon

[sexconker]

As with most of these "issues", it's not about equality. It's about raising a major stink about a minor thing in order to get "support" (attention, votes, money, etc.).

Re:c'mon

[ShanghaiBill]

If you give someone consent to take a video of you having sex then you need to beware

In many cases, no consent was given. Even if it was, consent to take a picture shouldn't automatically imply consent to broadcast it to the world. A girl at my daughter's high school was a victim of revenge porn. She killed herself. That is far from an isolated case. To suggest that this isn't traumatic, and that the victims somehow deserve it, is asinine.

Re:c'mon

[ckatko]

Basically.

Women intentionally objectify themselves by using the mere sight of their naked body as some sort of "prize" and "reward" for desired behavior and you're telling me--MY GOD--some males might bypass the system altogether and look at porn, or visit prostitutes instead of jumping through their artificial hurdles? What's wrong with these men? How sick in the head do they have to be to want to satisfy their sexual needs without submitting to a long process of jumping through hoops for the potential for sexual gratification?

Furthermore, as women treat themselves as objects to be "won", you mean men might go around and show these pictures and videos to other males, as bragging rights for passing the hurdles women have created? NO. NEVER. Men aren't naturally competitive at all!

Re:c'mon

[divide overflow]

Because an egregious violation of someone's privacy that's can be traumatizing as a sexual assault is a minor thing.

Revenge porn is a sexual assault? Seriously? Do you also regard the iCloud compromise as a sexual assault?

His premise that revenge porn "can be as traumatizing as a sexual assault" is not in any way the same as saying "Revenge porn is a sexual assault.". What you did there was to twist his words to create a straw man to attack, saying his statement about traumatization was instead claiming actual assault. Re-read his statement and you'll see he never said what you claimed as his premise.

Re:c'mon

[Shadow of Eternity]

An isolated case is exactly what it is considering that somewhere north of 90% of suicide victims are male, and it's the second leading non-accidental cause of death for boys starting at age ten. the difference is nobody gives a shit about them. Nobody gives a shit that there is a website up RIGHT NOW on oh so feminist HuffPo mocking a man's penis and inviting people to share in mocking his leaked nude pictures further. Nobody gives a shit that Jezebel's parent company spreads men's leaked sex tapes and brags about fighting legal efforts to stop them.

Well... actually... that's not entirely true. People give a shit. If they didn't they wouldn't go out of their way to minimize or erase male suicide and male victims of revenge porn.

Re:c'mon

[ShanghaiBill]

Well, they deman equality of *results*, sometimes even superiority in many other fields - high paying jobs, political power, legislation benefits.

Really? How many victims of revenge porn have demanded any of these things? All they are asking for is protection from one of the most egregious invasions of privacy imaginable. To imply that they deserve it because of some completely unrelated feminist agenda being pushed by completely different people, is idiotic.

Really?

[EmeraldBot]

Its popularity has ballooned in recent years, and victims are disproportionately women.

I find it disgusting that the author wouldn't stop revenge porn because it's an immoral or criminal act, but only because most of the affected audience happens to be women. Are you next going to suggest that we don't run public transportation because it is a highly efficient method of travel that is cheaper for everyone involved, but only because non-white people are less likely to own a car?

What an incredibly sexist implication.

Re:Really?

[ClickOnThis]

I find it disgusting that the author wouldn't stop revenge porn because it's an immoral or criminal act, but only because most of the affected audience happens to be women.

Nice straw man. There's nothing in the letter or TFS or TFA that suggests anyone is doing this "only because most of the affected audience happens to be women."

The overwhelming majority of rape victims are women. But we have laws against rape because it is wrong, not because women are in the majority as victims.

Re:Really?

[Shados]

The implication here is more along the line of: "revenge porn is wrong, period. Some people may not feel like its an issue because they're guys and the victims are usually women".

Re:Once a clown, always a clown.

[quantaman]

The reason the FBI isn't doing more to combat revenge porn is thus: It's not illegal.
I would expect Franken, or at least someone who works for him, to know this. Perhaps he just wants it declared illegal by executive fiat, as is the practice with this administration.
But really, this ploy, and Slashdot's new social-justice-warrior driven coverage of it, is driven more by a desire to distract everyone from foreign events, Hillary's email server, and Obama's frequent and blatant power grabs.
That's actually kind of funny, now that I think of it. There's been no story posted at all about Clinton's email shenanigans. Well, we know who Dice has thrown their lot in with.

I would expect someone who writes a comment accusing the subject of being misinformed would at least RTFA to ensure they aren't completely misinformed on that very fact:

In a letter to FBI Director James Comey, the Minnesota Democrat asked for more information about the agency's authority to police against revenge porn, or the act of posting explicit sexual content online without the subject's consent, often for purposes of humiliation and extortion.

[...]

Franken wrote in his letter. "As technologies rapidly advance, it is our responsibility to ensure that our nation's laws keep pace with those technologies. But it is also our responsibility to ensure that existing laws are strictly enforced."

[...]

In addition, Franken wants information on any limitations within current law that may have impeded the FBI from carrying out investigations or making arrests. Franken, who asked for a response by May 8, is exploring whether legislation may be necessary to combat revenge porn, his office said.

In summary Franken is saying that revenge porn is a serious problem and he wants to know if the FBI can do more with the laws already there or if they need additional laws to fix the problem. Isn't this exactly what you want a legislator to do?

Comments so far are pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of you seem to think it should be legal for some low life cunt to upload an intimate video he took of his ex to a public forum to humilate her.
Well fuck you.
Just about every comment I've read has turned this into a copyright issue or an enforcement practicality issue or some gender bias bullshit.
In a civilized society laws are made to protect the vulnerable.
You wife or daughter might be the victim of this kind of shit one day. You pathetic fucks.