Learning.com Launches Cyberbullying Prevention Campaign for National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month

  A Williamsport woman charged with distribution of child pornography is accused of uploading explicit images from a minor’s cellphone onto the internet. Ashley Nicole Grove, 28, was charged this week by summons for an incident first reported by the victim on Jan. 2, according to the charging document filed by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in District Court. One of the charges was under Maryland’s revenge porn statute. The teenager told investigators that Grove posted the photos of her performing sexual acts on a male to Facebook, the document said. The victim said “she had several broken cell phones which she gave to” Grove, the document said. The victim told investigators that she gave a subscriber identification module (SIM) card to Grove, unaware that it contained images of her nude and having sex, the document said. The victim said Grove posted the images on her Facebook page on Dec….

  (istockphoto)   After years of stalled efforts at the state level, New York City is now pursing its own legislation to criminalize “revenge porn”—the act of sharing explicit photos of a person with the “intention to cause economic, emotional or physical harm.” Under the new bill, which is expected to get a committee vote in the council next month, sleazy offenders who share “intimate images” without their subject’s consent will face one year in jail and a fine of $1,000. Victims may also pursue civil penalties—including “compensatory and punitive damages”—in the absence of a criminal conviction. The bill was first introduced by Queens Councilman Rory Lancman last September, and has since gained the support of both Mayor de Blasio and the NYPD. “It is critically important for the laws in New York City to catch up with our technology to provide protections for New Yorkers from such abuse,” Lancman…

The Saskatchewan Legislative Building. Brandon Harder / Regina Leader-Post The provincial government has introduced legislation that is intended to support victims of “revenge porn.” The initiative, introduced today by Justice Minister and Attorney General Don Morgan, will create new legal options for people whose intimate images have been shared without their consent. An intimate image is a visual image, including photos or videos, in which a person is nude, partially nude, or engaged in explicit sexual activity, that was made in circumstances that implied a reasonable expectation of privacy. “This Bill sends a strong message that this callous, criminal behaviour has consequences, and that the Government of Saskatchewan stands with the victims of this type of attack,” Morgan said in a news release. The Privacy Amendment Act, 2017 will allow a person whose intimate image has been distributed without their consent to sue the person who distributed the image. It will also shift…

  MERRIMACK – A Manchester man wanted for allegedly posting “private sexual images” of an acquaintance on the internet turned himself in to Merrimack police. Officials said Wednesday that Aaron Mattil, 29, of Six Mulsey St., was charged with one count of nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images, a Class B felony. He was booked at police headquarters and later released on $2,500 personal recognizance bail pending arraignment, which police said is scheduled for July 5 in Hillsborough County Superior Court-South in Nashua. Police said they issued the warrant for Mattil’s arrest earlier this month, shortly after the alleged victim filed a complaint. “It is alleged that Mattil disseminated private sexual images of an acquaintance … without their consent,” police said. They said Mattil allegedly posted them via text message. According to their archives, Merrimack police arrested Mattil on April 23, charging him with two counts of violation of a…

  Facebook is ramping up its efforts to combat the spread of non-consensual “revenge porn” images across its main website, Instagram and Messenger, it confirmed this week. The move expands on a pilot scheme announced last year that asked any users who were concerned about the spread of intimate images to proactively upload them using the encrypted Messenger service, where photo-matching technology could prevent further sharing. The social network has stressed it does not store the images long term, but instead keeps their unique fingerprint, or “hash.” Initial tests rolled out to a small number of users in Australia last November. On Tuesday, Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, shared more details about how the plan had evolved in recent months. Now, the website is working closely with safety, survivor and victim organizations across in Canada, the U.K. and U.S. to help stop private moments being shared online without permission. “It’s demeaning…

CLOSE SportsPulse: From Nationals Park, Trysta Krick and USA TODAY Sports’ baseball insiders look ahead to a full day of postseason baseball. USA TODAY Sports Washington Nationals’ assistant hitting coach Jacque Jones has been suspended.(Photo: Mark Tenally, AP) The Washington Nationals announced that assistant hitting coach Jacque Jones was suspended pending a legal matter minutes before Friday’s Game 1 of the NLDS - a game they would lose 3-0 to the Chicago Cubs. The team said Jones’ suspension with pay was due to a pending legal matter that the club is investigating. Court documents obtained by USA TODAY Sports spell out what that legal matter appears to be: a revenge porn lawsuit that lists both Jones and the Nationals as defendants. According to the lawsuit filed last week in San Diego Superior Court, Jones allegedly distributed multiple nude photos of the plaintiff — referenced as Jane Doe in the filing — after Jones and the woman’s relationship ended in…

  Photo: Getty The New York state Senate failed to vote on a revenge porn bill on Wednesday, and those advocating for the legislation blame Google and a tech lobbyist group for pressuring lawmakers to abandon it in the final hour. The bill, if passed, would have criminalized the non-consensual distribution of intimate photos in the state, which is one of the last remaining holdout states to make revenge porn illegal. “In New York state we have laws that protect financial information, medical information, corporate secrets,” victims’ rights attorney Carrie Goldberg told Gizmodo in an email. “Hell, it’s technically illegal to record at a Beyoncé concert and post that to the Internet, but yet there is no protection when it comes to sexual privacy.” On Tuesday, the New York Assembly unanimously approved the bill. Wednesday was the last day for the Senate to vote before the end of the legislative…

  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 —…

  A CULROSS man who twice assaulted his ex and sent an intimate photo of her to her new partner has been ordered to pay £600 in compensation. John Prosser, 30, of Erskine Brae, threw a shoe at her which hit a blind which then broke and hit her, and on another occasion he pushed her and hit his ex when she went to pick up her belongings. Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard the accused and the complainer, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been together for around four years prior to the abuse. Prosser admitted that on July 18, 2021 at Nith Street, Dunfermline, he assaulted his partner by throwing a shoe at her, striking a blind whereby said blind was disabled and struck her on the body to her injury. On September 11, 2017, at the same address, he assaulted her by striking her on the body…

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…

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…

  A Texas appeals court last week ruled that the US state’s Relationship Privacy Act, which prohibits the disclosure or promotion of intimate images without the consent of those depicted, is unconstitutional. Enacted in 2015, the Texas law was intended as a way to stop what’s known as revenge porn, in which a person discloses intimate sexual images, online or otherwise, to cause harm and embarrassment to another person. The law covered images to those taken under circumstances when the depicted person had a reasonable expectation that the material would remain private. It’s one of 38 state laws that have been enacted in the US to combat revenge porn, also referred to as nonconsensual distribution of pornographic images because the perpetrator’s motivation – revenge or otherwise – wouldn’t mitigate the act. In its consideration of an appeal by defendant Jordan Bartlett Jones, accused in a civil complaint last year of…

Lisa M. can’t walk around her hometown without wondering who has seen her naked. The 28-year-old from Gardner, Mass., was only 17 when her then-boyfriend snapped a couple of topless photos of her when she wasn’t looking. She loved him, trusted him and had no idea he even owned a camera. Years later, the pictures would surface online and spread all over her tiny hometown. “To see those online was just like a total betrayal of trust, and on top of that, there’s nothing you can do about it — it’s just there, and you can’t take it down, and you don’t know who’s seen it,” she said. The pictures had been posted to the Web site “Anon-IB,” a k a Anonymous Image Board, one of the world’s main online promoters of revenge porn — intimate photos that are uploaded typically by a former sex partner and without the subject’s consent. Anon-IB…

  A group of local women who have given advice to Facebook, butted heads with Google and have helped thousands of victims of image abuse – more commonly known as revenge porn – are celebrating the first anniversary of their organization. Battling Against Demeaning and Abusive Selfie Sharing – BADASS – began a year ago after founder Katelyn Bowden of Youngstown discovered intimate images of her had been posted to the internet without her consent after an ex-boyfriend’s phone was stolen. With little protection in terms of state legislation, the police couldn’t offer Bowden much help. Frustrated, she and BeLinda Berry, a friend whose images also were stolen and shared on the internet, began the nonprofit BADASS to help victims of image abuse fight back. By their first year, the group was responsible for having more than 9,000 images removed from the internet and identified more than 1,500 people who…

  A University of Utah student was being extorted by her ex-boyfriend before he killed her, police say. Lauren McCluskey, 21, had reported an extortion attempt to university police on Oct. 13, nine days before she was killed. McCluskey told the officers that she had wired $1,000 to an account earlier in the month to prevent “compromising pictures” of her and her ex-boyfriend Melvin Rowland from being released to the public, according to Fox News. But it took six days for university police to begin investigating the extortion attempt - a fact officials blamed on workload issues, according to CBS News. Also, while they were aware of the 37-year-old Rowland’s status as a sex offender, they didn’t know he was on parole at the time. “It was assigned out to a detective. The detective had been in contact with Ms. McCluskey, and they were working to build a case against our…