4 ms·

There's plenty of cases of kids being charged with, and convicted of, production of child pornography by sharing nude selfies on Snapchat: https://www.vice.com/

There's plenty of cases of kids being charged with, and convicted of, production of child pornography by sharing nude selfies on Snapchat: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjvnx3/minors-can-be-convicted-of-child-porn-for-sending-nude-selfies-court-rules https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjvnx3/minors-can-be-convict...

vmception 6y ago
Should have went with a first amendment challenge in federal court. Silly state legislatures. If only these defendants had money.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > Should have went with a first amendment challenge in federal court The nature of the case in-question is clearly one of obscenity (the subject was sexually harassing someone else, which is definitely not protected by first-amendment rights). As a WA resident myself, I'm disappointed in the judgement (though that depends on what the State Supreme Court's role is - it's unclear to me if they were deciding what the law said or if they were deciding what was just in the circumstances - kinda like how the US Supreme Court will decide if a given law is constitutional or not, regardless of how just or actually necessary that law is for a well-functioning society - this wouldn't be as big a problem if the US would end its sacrosanct, holy-text treatment of the Constitution - I used to admire and revel in the simplicity of a short written, principled, constitution - but now that I'm older, wiser and far more cynical I feel the other countries' approach of "the law IS the constitution" makes it easier to be responsive and reactive without necessarily betraying any long-standing principles.
  - vmception 6y ago
    It looks to me like the state Supreme Court just deferred to the legislatures and assumed what they meant It wasn’t argued on Washington or Federal constitutional free speech grounds I think they totally could challenge in Federal Court whether the state legislature’s interest in protection outweighed the individual minor’s 1st amendment rights, punting it back to the state trial court to convict only on the harassment grounds
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kristopolous 6y ago
Interesting. This seems rather bizarre. The whole sex crime framework needs to be fundamentally revisited. Someone taking a photo of themselves to share privately with someone sounds in the clear. When these laws were written someone would have had to process the film themself, make a print, address an envelope and put it in the mail. A teenager doing that for a casual recipient sounds like some outlandish stunt in a John Waters film. The courts and legislatures can be forgiven for not having accommodated for such things. However we now live in clearly different times. It's almost like the political fallout would be so severe that neither judges nor politicians are willing to exercise the political capital so everyone stays in the lane no matter how absurd things get. Being called a "pro-pedophilia" candidate for claiming teenagers shouldn't become sex-offending criminals for taking photographs of themselves would be a daunting attack to work through. In a position of power I'd probably also assess it's not worth the political capital and stick with the program as well. Maybe there needs to be a more favorable case like say, a secretly sexually active teenager uses an online medical service to send photographs about a possible infection and their over-reacting zealous parents find out, become outraged, and try to sue the medical service for possessing underage content.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

vmception 6y ago

Should have went with a first amendment challenge in federal court. Silly state legislatures. If only these defendants had money.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
> Should have went with a first amendment challenge in federal court The nature of the case in-question is clearly one of obscenity (the subject was sexually harassing someone else, which is definitely not protected by first-amendment rights). As a WA resident myself, I'm disappointed in the judgement (though that depends on what the State Supreme Court's role is - it's unclear to me if they were deciding what the law said or if they were deciding what was just in the circumstances - kinda like how the US Supreme Court will decide if a given law is constitutional or not, regardless of how just or actually necessary that law is for a well-functioning society - this wouldn't be as big a problem if the US would end its sacrosanct, holy-text treatment of the Constitution - I used to admire and revel in the simplicity of a short written, principled, constitution - but now that I'm older, wiser and far more cynical I feel the other countries' approach of "the law IS the constitution" makes it easier to be responsive and reactive without necessarily betraying any long-standing principles.
- vmception 6y ago
  It looks to me like the state Supreme Court just deferred to the legislatures and assumed what they meant It wasn’t argued on Washington or Federal constitutional free speech grounds I think they totally could challenge in Federal Court whether the state legislature’s interest in protection outweighed the individual minor’s 1st amendment rights, punting it back to the state trial court to convict only on the harassment grounds

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kristopolous 6y ago

Interesting. This seems rather bizarre. The whole sex crime framework needs to be fundamentally revisited. Someone taking a photo of themselves to share privately with someone sounds in the clear. When these laws were written someone would have had to process the film themself, make a print, address an envelope and put it in the mail. A teenager doing that for a casual recipient sounds like some outlandish stunt in a John Waters film. The courts and legislatures can be forgiven for not having accommodated for such things. However we now live in clearly different times. It's almost like the political fallout would be so severe that neither judges nor politicians are willing to exercise the political capital so everyone stays in the lane no matter how absurd things get. Being called a "pro-pedophilia" candidate for claiming teenagers shouldn't become sex-offending criminals for taking photographs of themselves would be a daunting attack to work through. In a position of power I'd probably also assess it's not worth the political capital and stick with the program as well. Maybe there needs to be a more favorable case like say, a secretly sexually active teenager uses an online medical service to send photographs about a possible infection and their over-reacting zealous parents find out, become outraged, and try to sue the medical service for possessing underage content.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]