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Tougher penalties for revenge porn offenders who attempt to magnify victim’s humiliation

Revenge porn offenders who send explicit pictures to the families of their victims or who set up websites to magnify their targets’ humiliation will face the toughest penalties under new sentencing proposals. New guidelines have been drafted for courts dealing with defendants convicted of disclosing private sexual images without consent. Circulating revenge pornography carries a maximum jail term of two years, so those who send pictures to their victims’ families or set up websites could soon face prison terms at the upper end of this scale. On Thursday the Sentencing Council will launch a consultation on proposed rules for judges and magistrates when punishing revenge porn perpetrators in England and Wales. The document sets out the circumstances that could constitute the highest level of culpability, thus attracting sentences at the higher end of the two year scale. Behaviour calculated to cause maximum distress - such as sending images to a…

eSafety Commission launches world-first online portal to fight “revenge porn”

If someone has shared an intimate photo of you without your consent - known as image-based abuse but sometimes called “revenge porn” - the Federal Government wants to help you get rid of it online. Launched today by the Office of the eSafety Commissioner, a new and world-first online portal hopes to empower victims, simplify the reporting process, and offer support. “It’s sort of a one-stop-shop for victims of image-based abuse. They can come to the portal, decide what action they want to take or information they want to gather,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told Hack. “They can report directly to the social media sites, report directly to us if they have a more complicated case - or want to know where there images are, as we’ve got some technologies that we’re using to help them identify where their images might be and to help them remove those images.”…

Netherlands new revenge porn law feels like victory: victim

The new government’s plan to make revenge porn a separate and punishable offense, feels like a victory for Chantal from Werkendam - the Netherlands best known victim of revenge porn, her lawyer Thomas van Vugt said to Eindhovens Dagblad. Currently, victims of revenge porn - when an ex or someone puts sexual photos or videos of you online as an act of revenge - can only press charges of slander or defamation against the perpetrator. That usually ends in a fine. According to the new government of VVD, CDA, D66 and ChristenUnie, the spreading of revenge porn deeply affects victims’ personal lives. At the initiative of the ChristenUnie, they therefore decided to make it a separate criminal offense in the future. “It is highly necessary that revenge porn is included as an independent criminal act in the Criminal Code. We no longer live in the Stone Age, but in a…

California teacher allegedly blackmailed student he molested with revenge porn threats

A California middle school music teacher was arrested on Friday on the suspicion of having a three-year-long sexual relationship with a student and then blackmailing the victim with nude photographs, authorities said. Samuel Neipp, 34, started the relationship while the middle school student was 13 and it continued for three years, police said. Authorities found out about the alleged relationship after Neipp allegedly threatened to post nude photos of the victim. The alleged threat prompted an investigation by San Jose Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children and Child Exploitation Detail. It is unclear whether the student or someone else reported Neipp to authorities. “Neipp used his position of authority to exploit the victim into a sexual relationship,” a statement issued by the police said. Neipp was detained on Friday and is being held in Santa Clara County Jail without bail on suspicion of sexual acts with a minor under 14,…

Man jailed for spreading ‘revenge porn’ - ASEAN/East Asia

SEOUL: A man in his 30s has been found guilty of posting nude photos of his former girlfriend on social media in an apparent “revenge porn” scheme. Busan District Court on Sunday handed down a jail term of 1 1/2 years to the man for spreading private sexual images without consent. The court said it took into consideration how the suspect had no previous criminal records and had already paid compensation to the victim. In December last year, the man allegedly created a fake social media profile impersonating his ex-girlfriend and posted nude photos of her with obscene comments. The man told investigators he decided to post the nude photos, as his former girlfriend had been avoiding contact with him in an attempt to break up. The fake profile was taken down afterward. However, the photos had already been circulated on other networks and websites. The victim has reportedly been…

Man sentenced under new ‘revenge porn’ law

ASSOCIATED PRESS Published 12:59 p.m. CT Oct. 4, 2017 | Updated 6:13 p.m. CT Oct. 4, 2017 ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — An eastern Minnesota man has been sentenced under a new state law that seeks to hold people accountable for revenge porn. Anoka resident Michael Weigel was sentenced to four months in jail and three years of probation, the Pioneer Press reported. The 39-year-old was convicted on one count of felony nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images. Weigel was accused of creating a fake Facebook account under the name of his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, friending people they knew and posting naked pictures of the woman last December. He pleaded guilty to the charge in August. “I will worry about these images for the rest of my life and live with the shame and embarrassment the rest of my life,” the woman told the court. She spent weeks trying to have…

Australia takes on revenge porn

The Australian government wants to help victims of revenge porn. A new online reporting portal from the country’s eSafety Commissioner’s office aims to assist people who have suffered from the spread of intimate, nude or sexual images distributed without consent. Revenge porn has affected one in five Australians between the ages of 16 to 49, according to a recent study from researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne. By contrast, one out of 25 Americans have been victims of similar abuse, a report from the New York-based Data & Society Research Institute suggests. In Australia, similar to in the United States, only certain states and territories have laws to protect citizens against the non-consensual sharing of photos and videos. This new portal intends to support and guide individuals through options such as reporting images to the police, flagging social media sites, or informing the eSafety Commissioner’s office. Individuals can put in…

Cyberbullying Victims May Be Twice as Likely to Self-Harm and Show Suicidal Behaviors

  Children and young people under 25 who are victims of cyberbullying are more than twice as likely to self-harm and exhibit suicidal behavior, according to a new U.K. study. But new research also suggests that it is not just the victims of cyberbullying that are more vulnerable to suicidal behaviors. Bullies also are at higher risk of experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Cyberbullying is using electronic communication to bully someone else, for instance by sending intimidating, threatening or unpleasant messages using social media, researchers explain. The systematic review study, led by Professor Ann John at Swansea University Medical School in collaboration with researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham, looked at more than 150,000 children and young people across 30 countries over a 21-year period. The findings, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, highlighted the significant impact that cyberbullying — both as bullies and victims —…

Cultural shift needed to stop revenge porn, says women’s advocate - Saskatchewan, Canada

While a women’s advocate applauds the Saskatchewan government’s plans to give victims of revenge porn more power in court, she says the move won’t shift the cultural attitudes behind the harmful practice. In Wednesday’s throne speech, the provincial government announced plans to change the Privacy Act to allow victims of revenge porn the option to sue their bullies in small-claims court. Revenge porn is typically when private intimate images are publicly shared online without authorization. The province said that relying solely on the Criminal Code to crack down on this type of cyberbullying has been difficult because the burden of proof is so high. The changes will “put the onus on the person that circulates it to prove that they had the consent of the person who was in the pictures,” said Justice Minister Don Morgan to reporters Wednesday. “It’s a tool that we want to give to victims in our province,” he…

Teens are cyberbullying themselves as a form of digital self-harm

  NATIONWIDE — A new study is showing that a number of adolescents and teens are participating in a new form of self-harm. According to the recent study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, “digital self-harm” is the “anonymous online posting, sending or otherwise sharing of hurtful content about oneself.” The teens who participate bully themselves in order to manage their feelings of “sadness and self-hatred” and to get attention. The study found that about 6 percent of students have “anonymously posted something online about themselves that was mean.” This isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon, as in 2012, 9 percent of teens said they’d bullied themselves. Involvement in digital-self harm was correlated with sexual orientation, experience with school bullying and cyberbullying, drug use participation in various forms of “adolescent deviance” and depressive symptoms. “I think it would be a launching pad for more of a personality disorder that they’re…