Isn't it clear that this is not child porn, and that the law is wrong, when teenagers are sexting? It's just almost-adults discovering their sexuality, how can they be prosecuted without anyone in that process thinking that something is wrong?
It depends a bit on the ages and intent of the teenagers. A 17 year old who has no sexual interest in other 17 year olds but who does have sexual interest in 13 year olds is possibly worrying, especially if they've managed to gather nude photographs of 13 year olds.
(Not saying anything like that happened here though).
But even ignoring the child sexual abuse images aspect: It's a pretty unhealthy culture where children assign point values to naked photographs of other children. That's not normal exploration of childhood sexuality.
In cultures that have much more open sexuality we see reduced sexual activity in children (eg, less sexually transmitted infection; fewer unplanned pregnancies).
The UK / US seem to have a problem with this and just telling children to stop doing it doesn't seem to be working.
(Fully agree that prosecuting a child for taking an image of themself is a bad idea)
> It's a pretty unhealthy culture where children assign point values to naked photographs of other children.
I agree, and I think the problem stems exactly from the culture that vilifies sex. If you treat sex as something natural and normal, I think teenagers will be much less likely to treat it as something to "collect".
Although laws seem to only consider age, this makes little sense given the wide variety in puberty. Some 19-year-olds look 15, and some 13-year-olds not only look 17 but they have probably matured over their peers to the point of being physically closer to the average 17-year-old than the average 13-year-old. It is certainly possible for a 17-year-old and 13-year-old to seem physically similar and be attracted normally to one another. Society shouldn't be able to auto-condemn a relationship at one point in time, and magically become OK with it 5 years later (when the two people may not even look that different).
It gets even worse when absolute age is considered. It's insane that two 17-year-olds can meet and date and want to have sex, yet people come with pitchforks to prosecute the first one unfortunate enough to turn 18!?
I actually think Greece got this pretty right, the age of consent is 15 and if the people involved are within 3 years of age from each other, it's legal. The one dark spot here is that the age of consent for homosexual relationships between men is 18 for both participants, but here's hoping that will go away soon too.
I had half written a post about how the laws in Australia are similar to what you outlined for Greece. I certainly agree that they make a lot more sense than no (legal) consent being considered possible for adolescents.
But in the end I dropped it because it struck me that while the legal ramifications of this situation may be considered stupid, the far overriding worry to me is how unhealthy this situation is: for those involved, for their community, and their culture.
The focus should be on the far more difficult problem of changing that. While legislation may be a part of that, I doubt if that alone is the solution. How do we fix this?
I think it is a little more grey than you are describing it. The article notes that there was a "points" system among students, for who could collect the "best" nudes. I think that is pretty wrong. I also feel like peer pressure needs to be considered. Do you really think there are no kids at that school who felt pressured into sharing nudes?
(I do think that describing it as a "nude-sharing ring" is ridiculous, it makes it sound like they were all doing something nefarious.)
> Isn't it clear that this is not child porn, and that the law is wrong, when teenagers are sexting?
The fact that it was taken by the "subject" , send to another minor makes no difference. Some porn has been produced and may very well end up on a child porn site.
The problem is the absurd harsh penalty risked by these minors if they get caught. Like becoming a registered sex offender and stuff like that. That's where the problem is.
But you can't deny that this is underage porn content. Sexting doesn't mean anything new. There should be however some leniency because of the intent and that's not always the case. The justice system has to catch up. no question.
You need to also consider that it looked like a well organized system if more than a 100 people were participating. Is it still just sexting when content is traded among students ?
> Some porn has been produced and may very well end up on a child porn site.
What? No. Child porn isn't illegal because its consumption hurts electrons, it's because its production hurts children. If nobody has been hurt while making this "child porn", and it was taken voluntarily (by someone who may even be able of legally consenting to sex, no less!) I don't see what the problem is.
Not saying I necessarily agree with the reasoning, but the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 includes "picture or computer-generated image or picture" which "is, or, appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct" in its definition of child pornography.
The reasoning was that even simulated child pornography fosters the market for, and encourages the consumption of, the kind that hurts children. Consumers won't necessarily know or care about the provenance of any particular piece of material, so all are banned regardless of the means of production.
These provisions were struck down by the Supreme Court in 2002, on the reasoning that the ban was too broad -- "Without a significantly stronger, more direct connection, the Government may not prohibit speech on the ground that it may encourage pedophiles to engage in illegal conduct."
So, Congress responded by more specifically criminalizing the advertisement, sale, or promotion of material that "reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe" that it is of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
So these images are still illegal on the simple fact that they are explicit; but even if one tried to ban only the non-voluntary or non-first-party images, it'd be illegal to pass them off otherwise.
This topic is so radioactive that I'm reluctant even to write about it, but it really is interesting constitutionally.
That is very interesting indeed, thank you. I disagree with the reasoning, but I can understand it. It comes down to whether you think that child pornography that didn't include actual children is a "gateway drug" to the harmful kind, or whether you think it'll be a substitute, preventing people from harming children for their satisfaction. I don't think the average person can become a pedophile just by watching child porn, so I'm in the latter camp.
Too bad this topic is too controversial to touch. Too bad there are such topics, really.
there are probably some 18-year-old high schoolers involved. i.e. adults.
i remember in high school when you turned 18 they met with you and explained all your additional rights and privileges, like calling yourself out of class and leaving campus without a pass/during lunch. they also were not allowed to tell your parents about any disciplinary action, like in college/university. my memory might be a little fuzzy here but that's the general gist of it.
if an student > 18 was involved here it's going to be a very different kind of situation than the minors.
I had the opposite experience (at Richardson ISD in Texas). I spent my entire senior year being 18, and aside from a few nice teachers who let me sign my own syllabi, they just completely ignored the fact that I was an adult. They made me have my mom sign things and excuse me from class (although to be fair, in this state adults enrolled in K-12 classes are still required by law to attend). I had to get a parent signature in order to get a non-zero grade on a research paper. I even had my choir director tell me that I "don't get a bunch of rights" when I had the gall to ask if I could consent to my own medical care for trips.
I also heard a couple of stories of adult students who didn't live with their parents being tricked into signing "affidavits of residency" that actually took away their rights and gave them a guardian until their graduation. If this is true, then I have no clue how it could possibly be legal. I've found nothing online about that kind of thing.
I never understand why parents push so much responsibility to school administrators. When something is not happening at school, during school hours, related to education, why is the school expected to do anything at all?
If use of a phone app causes interruptions in class, you respond by setting rules in class such as "put your phones away". Otherwise, it's COMPLETELY outside the boundaries of the school.
The police shouldn't be involved unless a charge has been levied by someone (e.g. "this person took pictures without my permission"). Bringing them in did nothing to help the children, it only further increased exposure. Oh, great: the police are going to "try to identify" the children in the naked pictures; well, how, exactly, without making the situation far worse for everyone?
Parents need to be parents. Train children about the risks of trading pictures or anything else of a personal nature (pictures are not guaranteed to be seen only by the person you send them to, pictures can be used as blackmail, etc.). Show kids why they should think twice before doing these things. And yes, commend them for the sensible steps that were taken, e.g. guarding things behind a password instead of leaving them completely in the open.
We don't know that. We don't whether some pictures were taken or traded inside the school. And if that's the case, the school administrator are responsible.
But I'm more concerned about the destinations of these photos which may likely end up in child-porn sites on the internet.
edit: ok it seems some pictures were actually taken in the school.
It was happening in school - some of the images were taken at school. The coordination was mostly done at school. The main people involved were all part of the school American Football team.
And the school was the only thing that all those children shared. The culture of the school is obviously a factor.
You can support and educate your child about nude images, but if s/he's spending 30 hours a week among people pressuring her/him for nude photos s/he is going to need to do a lot of resisting. (Which, in this case, may have increased the "point value" (if that bit's true) and thus increase the numbers of people trying to get pictures.)
> The police shouldn't be involved unless a charge has been levied by someone (e.g. "this person took pictures without my permission")
Children can't consent to sexual activity. Law makers decided that nude images of children is sexual activity. Thus, children can't consent to making nude images of themselves.
EDIT: Also, Bob may not care that Ann has the image. But if Ann's phone images get hacked and Bob's nude image ends up on the Internet Bob may feel considerable distress. We know that some / many people who were photographed during their child sexual abuse will experience trauma from the existence of those images.
The child's inability to consent to sex is inherent to the attributes of the child, and derives in no way from the attributes of the child's partner. Therefore, any sex that a child participates in, regardless of any attributes of the partner, is non-consensual and therefore the child is being raped.
The person possessing the image, unless they are the person in that image.
The person distributing that image, unless they are the person in that image.
The person taking the image, unless they are the person in that image.
The person causing that image to be taken whether by normal persuasion, or by coercion, or financial incentive, or violence. (Unless they are the person in that image).
I'm not keen on using that bit of criminal law on children. It doesn't feel like justice, and it doesn't seem to be working.
The fault is not with the school administrators. It is with the system. Bad things happen when you put many children of the same age together. Children need role models and when they don't have them around they look at each other for role models (aka peer orientation) and this is a sample outcome.
The only thing different today is the technology creates new opportunities for those bad things. When I was a kid it was things like smoking, bullying, vandalism etc. As an ex-kid :) and a parent let me tell you, without constant feedback kids just do the dumbest things.
As another ex-kid, many of the dumbest things I and my peers did were thrilling especially _because_ they were forbidden. I can definitely understand why it would be a great rush to create/share nude selfies given US attitudes about nudity and sex.
There will be a movement to "decriminalize sexting," or perhaps even "decriminalize youth," which will grow rapidly in the coming years.
It will be interesting to see how it fares against the rhetoric about child porn (and child safety generally) that characterizes the current political climate.
I'm torn about whether or not sexting is a legitimate problem... Very many teens do it with mutual consent, and for older teens it really shouldn't be illegal at all. But I do think that, to some extent, younger teenagers need to protected against themselves. They just don't have the maturity to recognize the consequences of their actions. I think that really, what really is important is fixing sexual education. America doesn't have rigorous guidelines for sex-education, and that means schools often take a DARE like approach to it. I think that the federal government might need to implement a national standard for sex-education, focusing more on the reality of sexual activity and the risks involved. I'm not sure that is ever going to happen though, it is probably far to left wing for social-conservatives in Congress.
Whether or not we reform sexual education, the legal system needs to figure out a better way of handling sexual activity among minors. Filing child porn charges on minors exchanging nude pictures is ridiculous. I'd support an exception to current child porn statues to protect minors from being falsely labeled "sex-offenders", sort of like the Romeo and Juliet clauses in most statutory rape statues. That would be a good step towards actually recognizing that people don't wait until they are 18 before developing sexuality. (Although they really should, because as soon as you turn 18, all the reasoning and maturity that makes you an adult comes in at once...)
Wouldn't it be relatively easy to have each owner of a phone enter their birthdate upon setting up the phone, and then do image-detection so the phone would just block the saving of any photo that contained nudity until the owner was over 18? Of course, technology can be circumvented but this would be a start.
Wouldn't it be relatively easy to have each citizen enter their passport number upon setting up the phone, and then do natural language processing so the phone would just block the transmission of any forbidden speech unless the owner held a diplomatic passport? Of course, technology can be circumvented but this would be a start.
We have facial recognition technology that recognises black people as gorillas, and other face recognition technology that ignores black people.
Nudity recognition is going to be really hard to detect.
Since these children were using "vault apps" those vault apps would probably start to include bypass techniques.
And this ignores the sexual health stuff that children can validly search for. You don't want to block images of how to check your testicles for cancer, for example. (Although photographs are probably not helpful blocking the images would be counterproductive.)
The last one at least wouldn't apply. Only pictures the phone takes would be blocked. Assuming this is some sort of OS/Administrative app, I doubt the vault apps could get around anything preventing the camera service from returning an image without, basically, rooting the phone. Other than that, the facial recognition stuff is a fair point.
This is a technology problem, and I expect that we'll find a technology solution. I bet there are dozens of bright young things working on image processing algorithms to detect various undesirable states of undress and the exposure of sexual organs, and that these algorithms will be baked into the terms of service of the Internet as we know it, and that said Internet will be a much more user friendly place without such images.
This is a solved technology problem[1]. A technical solution has not changed the fact that people do not want all of their pictures scanned by a third party.
As always, the underlying problem of parents' sheepish deference to authority (be it school administrators in this case, but also police, government, and "experts") will not be questioned by the New York Times.
Look at the article's treatment of the parent who went to the school counselor about a photo she found on her daughter's phone. All it says is she was "heartbroken" by the school's response and eventually decided to home-school her child.
Did the parent take away her daughter's cell phone? Where there other reasons for pulling her daughter out of the school (perhaps the toxic culture in which a majority of students are trading nude photos of themselves)? What did she expect the school to do anyway?
We will not learn the answers to these questions, only that in some way, the school failed, not the parents.
The fact that parents are continually ceding responsibility for raising their own children to whoever will take it, is not at issue here. That point is taken for granted whenever one of these cases comes up.
I wonder what would happen if schools started banning cellphones entirely. Why do kids need them anyway--they can always make a phone call from the principal's office. I suspect parents would complain about their heavy-handed tactics (but in reality the problem is that it makes their job harder).
It seems like our culture is continually interested in passing the buck to someone else, until something goes wrong, at which point "something" must be done. Rinse and repeat.
This parent found a nude image (and so was checking the phone?) and took action - she told the school and was told the school wasn't going to do anything; she pulled her child out of school and homeschooled.
I don't understand how you read that and say that she was giving all responsibility to the school. (And the school acts in loco parentis - they're supposed to be responsible for the child for the 6 hours a day the child is there.)
The article talks about "safe sexting" education as a solution, but I'd like to suggest that such a thing does not and perhaps will never exist.
It's great that you trust the person you're sending the pictures to not to share them, but you also have to trust:
1) That same person with that same responsibility even after you break up, including when they're at their most angry with you.
2) That nobody (your school, your ISP, your government) is eavesdropping on your communication method.
3) The software that's being used to both send and receive the photo.
4) That the recipient will keep their phone or PC physically secure so that random people can't just click "Photos" and view them.
5) That the recipient won't get "hacked" and have your photos uploaded online somewhere without their knowledge.
There's a lot of parallels with DRM and copyright - once you've converted something into an easily-copyable form and sent it across a network, it's very, very hard to make sure that it never gets copied again. We should be telling teenagers (and maybe some older people too...) the truth - that if they sext, no matter how much they trust the other person, they're taking a risk that their photos might end up shared more widely.
You assume that "safe sexting" doesn't teach 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 as reasons to avoid sexting? And that safe sexting doesn't try to move children to posting clothed instead of unclothed images but with sexual text instead of sexual images?
> For Lauren Dobson-Hughes, president of Planned Parenthood Ottawa, it’s important to teach teens about the criminality of sexting alongside the topic of consent, and offer guidance, should they choose to do it anyway. “If you tell youth not to do it, simply that it’s illegal, they hear, ‘Don’t get caught,’ and it doesn’t help them understand the actual risks involved in sexting,” she says. That’s why her organization is taking a risk-reduction approach to sexting in the sex education workshops it provides to young students in local schools upon request. This means accepting that sexting is part of teenage life. “There’s an upside to this, or they wouldn’t be doing it,” says Dobson-Hughes. “We would rather youth talk about consent in an age-appropriate way, throughout their lives, so they understand that sharing a picture without someone’s consent isn’t right.”
And we've had years and years of abstinence only approaches to reducing teenage unplanned pregnancy, or to reduce HIV/AIDS, and we know it just doesn't work.
I think you've severely misread my comment. I'm absolute NOT proposing any kind of "abstinence only education" regarding sexting.
I support what you said about teaching the risks and safer alternatives. If that's what "safe sexting" initiatives are teaching, great! However, that wasn't the impression I got from reading the article you linked - it talked a lot about the legal risks, a bit about trust and consent and a bit about taking "safe" sexy pictures that people won't be able to identify you in. My point in the comment above was that even if you do all of that, a lot of the risk is simply outside of your control. That's fine - people do risky things all the time, it's part of life. I just don't like taking an approach that's essentially harm reduction and calling it "safe".
42 comments
[ 22.7 ms ] story [ 1387 ms ] thread(Not saying anything like that happened here though).
But even ignoring the child sexual abuse images aspect: It's a pretty unhealthy culture where children assign point values to naked photographs of other children. That's not normal exploration of childhood sexuality.
In cultures that have much more open sexuality we see reduced sexual activity in children (eg, less sexually transmitted infection; fewer unplanned pregnancies).
The UK / US seem to have a problem with this and just telling children to stop doing it doesn't seem to be working.
(Fully agree that prosecuting a child for taking an image of themself is a bad idea)
I agree, and I think the problem stems exactly from the culture that vilifies sex. If you treat sex as something natural and normal, I think teenagers will be much less likely to treat it as something to "collect".
It gets even worse when absolute age is considered. It's insane that two 17-year-olds can meet and date and want to have sex, yet people come with pitchforks to prosecute the first one unfortunate enough to turn 18!?
But in the end I dropped it because it struck me that while the legal ramifications of this situation may be considered stupid, the far overriding worry to me is how unhealthy this situation is: for those involved, for their community, and their culture.
The focus should be on the far more difficult problem of changing that. While legislation may be a part of that, I doubt if that alone is the solution. How do we fix this?
The fact that it was taken by the "subject" , send to another minor makes no difference. Some porn has been produced and may very well end up on a child porn site.
The problem is the absurd harsh penalty risked by these minors if they get caught. Like becoming a registered sex offender and stuff like that. That's where the problem is.
But you can't deny that this is underage porn content. Sexting doesn't mean anything new. There should be however some leniency because of the intent and that's not always the case. The justice system has to catch up. no question.
You need to also consider that it looked like a well organized system if more than a 100 people were participating. Is it still just sexting when content is traded among students ?
What? No. Child porn isn't illegal because its consumption hurts electrons, it's because its production hurts children. If nobody has been hurt while making this "child porn", and it was taken voluntarily (by someone who may even be able of legally consenting to sex, no less!) I don't see what the problem is.
Not saying I necessarily agree with the reasoning, but the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 includes "picture or computer-generated image or picture" which "is, or, appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct" in its definition of child pornography.
The reasoning was that even simulated child pornography fosters the market for, and encourages the consumption of, the kind that hurts children. Consumers won't necessarily know or care about the provenance of any particular piece of material, so all are banned regardless of the means of production.
These provisions were struck down by the Supreme Court in 2002, on the reasoning that the ban was too broad -- "Without a significantly stronger, more direct connection, the Government may not prohibit speech on the ground that it may encourage pedophiles to engage in illegal conduct."
So, Congress responded by more specifically criminalizing the advertisement, sale, or promotion of material that "reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe" that it is of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
So these images are still illegal on the simple fact that they are explicit; but even if one tried to ban only the non-voluntary or non-first-party images, it'd be illegal to pass them off otherwise.
This topic is so radioactive that I'm reluctant even to write about it, but it really is interesting constitutionally.
Too bad this topic is too controversial to touch. Too bad there are such topics, really.
i remember in high school when you turned 18 they met with you and explained all your additional rights and privileges, like calling yourself out of class and leaving campus without a pass/during lunch. they also were not allowed to tell your parents about any disciplinary action, like in college/university. my memory might be a little fuzzy here but that's the general gist of it.
if an student > 18 was involved here it's going to be a very different kind of situation than the minors.
I also heard a couple of stories of adult students who didn't live with their parents being tricked into signing "affidavits of residency" that actually took away their rights and gave them a guardian until their graduation. If this is true, then I have no clue how it could possibly be legal. I've found nothing online about that kind of thing.
And all of this while we have a law on the books requiring adult students to exercise parental rights for themselves: http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/ED/htm/ED.26.htm#...
If use of a phone app causes interruptions in class, you respond by setting rules in class such as "put your phones away". Otherwise, it's COMPLETELY outside the boundaries of the school.
The police shouldn't be involved unless a charge has been levied by someone (e.g. "this person took pictures without my permission"). Bringing them in did nothing to help the children, it only further increased exposure. Oh, great: the police are going to "try to identify" the children in the naked pictures; well, how, exactly, without making the situation far worse for everyone?
Parents need to be parents. Train children about the risks of trading pictures or anything else of a personal nature (pictures are not guaranteed to be seen only by the person you send them to, pictures can be used as blackmail, etc.). Show kids why they should think twice before doing these things. And yes, commend them for the sensible steps that were taken, e.g. guarding things behind a password instead of leaving them completely in the open.
We don't know that. We don't whether some pictures were taken or traded inside the school. And if that's the case, the school administrator are responsible.
But I'm more concerned about the destinations of these photos which may likely end up in child-porn sites on the internet.
edit: ok it seems some pictures were actually taken in the school.
> The photo-sharing, some of which took place in school,
And the school was the only thing that all those children shared. The culture of the school is obviously a factor.
You can support and educate your child about nude images, but if s/he's spending 30 hours a week among people pressuring her/him for nude photos s/he is going to need to do a lot of resisting. (Which, in this case, may have increased the "point value" (if that bit's true) and thus increase the numbers of people trying to get pictures.)
> The police shouldn't be involved unless a charge has been levied by someone (e.g. "this person took pictures without my permission")
Children can't consent to sexual activity. Law makers decided that nude images of children is sexual activity. Thus, children can't consent to making nude images of themselves.
EDIT: Also, Bob may not care that Ann has the image. But if Ann's phone images get hacked and Bob's nude image ends up on the Internet Bob may feel considerable distress. We know that some / many people who were photographed during their child sexual abuse will experience trauma from the existence of those images.
We're talking about teenagers engaging in sexual activity with other teenagers.
That's the argument you're up against.
The person distributing that image, unless they are the person in that image.
The person taking the image, unless they are the person in that image.
The person causing that image to be taken whether by normal persuasion, or by coercion, or financial incentive, or violence. (Unless they are the person in that image).
I'm not keen on using that bit of criminal law on children. It doesn't feel like justice, and it doesn't seem to be working.
The only thing different today is the technology creates new opportunities for those bad things. When I was a kid it was things like smoking, bullying, vandalism etc. As an ex-kid :) and a parent let me tell you, without constant feedback kids just do the dumbest things.
It will be interesting to see how it fares against the rhetoric about child porn (and child safety generally) that characterizes the current political climate.
Whether or not we reform sexual education, the legal system needs to figure out a better way of handling sexual activity among minors. Filing child porn charges on minors exchanging nude pictures is ridiculous. I'd support an exception to current child porn statues to protect minors from being falsely labeled "sex-offenders", sort of like the Romeo and Juliet clauses in most statutory rape statues. That would be a good step towards actually recognizing that people don't wait until they are 18 before developing sexuality. (Although they really should, because as soon as you turn 18, all the reasoning and maturity that makes you an adult comes in at once...)
"To get the thing you want, you have to say Yes. Will you say yes?" - How many people honestly choose the "no" option?
Nudity recognition is going to be really hard to detect.
Since these children were using "vault apps" those vault apps would probably start to include bypass techniques.
And this ignores the sexual health stuff that children can validly search for. You don't want to block images of how to check your testicles for cancer, for example. (Although photographs are probably not helpful blocking the images would be counterproductive.)
1. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/microsoft-launches-free-cloud-versi...
Look at the article's treatment of the parent who went to the school counselor about a photo she found on her daughter's phone. All it says is she was "heartbroken" by the school's response and eventually decided to home-school her child.
Did the parent take away her daughter's cell phone? Where there other reasons for pulling her daughter out of the school (perhaps the toxic culture in which a majority of students are trading nude photos of themselves)? What did she expect the school to do anyway?
We will not learn the answers to these questions, only that in some way, the school failed, not the parents.
The fact that parents are continually ceding responsibility for raising their own children to whoever will take it, is not at issue here. That point is taken for granted whenever one of these cases comes up.
I wonder what would happen if schools started banning cellphones entirely. Why do kids need them anyway--they can always make a phone call from the principal's office. I suspect parents would complain about their heavy-handed tactics (but in reality the problem is that it makes their job harder).
It seems like our culture is continually interested in passing the buck to someone else, until something goes wrong, at which point "something" must be done. Rinse and repeat.
I don't understand how you read that and say that she was giving all responsibility to the school. (And the school acts in loco parentis - they're supposed to be responsible for the child for the 6 hours a day the child is there.)
It's great that you trust the person you're sending the pictures to not to share them, but you also have to trust:
1) That same person with that same responsibility even after you break up, including when they're at their most angry with you.
2) That nobody (your school, your ISP, your government) is eavesdropping on your communication method.
3) The software that's being used to both send and receive the photo.
4) That the recipient will keep their phone or PC physically secure so that random people can't just click "Photos" and view them.
5) That the recipient won't get "hacked" and have your photos uploaded online somewhere without their knowledge.
There's a lot of parallels with DRM and copyright - once you've converted something into an easily-copyable form and sent it across a network, it's very, very hard to make sure that it never gets copied again. We should be telling teenagers (and maybe some older people too...) the truth - that if they sext, no matter how much they trust the other person, they're taking a risk that their photos might end up shared more widely.
Here's a canadian thing talking about it, and about the difficulties of abstinence only approaches: http://www.macleans.ca/society/how-safe-is-sexting/
> For Lauren Dobson-Hughes, president of Planned Parenthood Ottawa, it’s important to teach teens about the criminality of sexting alongside the topic of consent, and offer guidance, should they choose to do it anyway. “If you tell youth not to do it, simply that it’s illegal, they hear, ‘Don’t get caught,’ and it doesn’t help them understand the actual risks involved in sexting,” she says. That’s why her organization is taking a risk-reduction approach to sexting in the sex education workshops it provides to young students in local schools upon request. This means accepting that sexting is part of teenage life. “There’s an upside to this, or they wouldn’t be doing it,” says Dobson-Hughes. “We would rather youth talk about consent in an age-appropriate way, throughout their lives, so they understand that sharing a picture without someone’s consent isn’t right.”
And we've had years and years of abstinence only approaches to reducing teenage unplanned pregnancy, or to reduce HIV/AIDS, and we know it just doesn't work.
I support what you said about teaching the risks and safer alternatives. If that's what "safe sexting" initiatives are teaching, great! However, that wasn't the impression I got from reading the article you linked - it talked a lot about the legal risks, a bit about trust and consent and a bit about taking "safe" sexy pictures that people won't be able to identify you in. My point in the comment above was that even if you do all of that, a lot of the risk is simply outside of your control. That's fine - people do risky things all the time, it's part of life. I just don't like taking an approach that's essentially harm reduction and calling it "safe".
Sorry! It's a bit late here. I think we agree.