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> The solution to revenge porn isn't platforms, it's why isn't the ex getting called "defendant" by a judge for making the recording without permission? The co

> The solution to revenge porn isn't platforms, it's why isn't the ex getting called "defendant" by a judge for making the recording without permission? The court system's responsiveness to sex crimes could be greatly improved if we had the collective will to do so. But the problem is both in the courts specifically (because of who the judges are, and who the legislators who write our laws are), and also the wider world. Victim blaming and dismissal/minimizing of the harm inflicted are par for the course everywhere, in the justice system, in the general population, and in many subgroups. (You'll see them here on HN all the time.)

tharne 5y ago
> But the problem is both in the courts specifically (because of who the judges are, and who the legislators who write our laws are), and also the wider world. I don't think this is it. It's a matter of resources. Police and courts are already so overburdened that it's hard to get enforcement on anything that isn't practically life or death. Have you or a friend ever had your apartment burglarized or a vehicle stolen? The police will show up, usually after several hours, take a statement, after which you'll never hear from them again. In fact I don't know a single person in real life who was a victim of a burglary or auto theft where the perpetrator was caught, save for those cases like a car jacking where significant violence was involved. When the police and district attorney in any given city in the U.S. are looking at double-digit unsolved homicides and God knows how many unsolved rape cases, I don't think they're going to put a high priority on the fact that there's a naughty movie out there that someone willing filmed themselves in and is now regretful about. This does not mean folks don't believe these things matter, because they do. It's that relative to what the justice system is already dealing with, these things are much less important.
- iudqnolq 5y ago
  When the NYPD have a guess at who did around 30% of murders, compared to the London police at 90% - and despite more funding than a small army - you have to wonder if the problem is purely resources. In fact, the vast majority of police are assigned to tasks like traffic enforcement, in part because that brings in more reliable revenue. (I'm using "guess at" to refer to clearance rate because if the cops tell a prosecutor they think you murdered someone and the prosecutor says it was obviously someone else so they're not charging you that's generally counted as cleared.)
  - volkl48 5y ago
    > When the NYPD have a guess at who did around 30% of murders This is false. NYC homicide clearance rates for 2021 look to be over 70% for the year, with Q4 2021 at 78%. (worst quarter - 55%, best - 86%). https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-analysis/clearance.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-analysis/cleara... > In fact, the vast majority of police are assigned to tasks like traffic enforcement NYPD is not known exactly known for a particularly large amount of traffic enforcement, to the point that I think you'd find most residents wish they did more of it.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      30% getting away with arguably our worst crime seems like it doesn't bode well for the clearance rate of lesser crimes. I wonder if a large contributor to the higher London clearance rate is related to socioeconomic factors or surveillance laws/systems.
      - vgeek 5y ago
        At a national level, the clearance rate for murders is ~61% per https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/table-26 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-... . Property crimes are <20%. The FBI's UCR Data Explorer used to give you an easy to use breakdown of crimes and clearance rate at the national/state/metro/city level, but unfortunately they redesigned it and now it is both harder to use and presents less data. I guess that is one way to hide data that isn't favorable? There seems to be more emphasis on the danger presented to law enforcement officers, but the #1 cause of death for officers by a large margin, per https://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2021 https://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2021, has been COVID.
        giantg2 5y ago
        Yeah, I just gave the 30% unsolved in response to the comment about NYC having 70% clearance rates on homicides.
    - 5y ago
- rectang 5y ago
  I agree that lack of resources is a contributing factor. > I don't think they're going to put a high priority on the fact that there's a naughty movie out there that someone willing filmed themselves in and is now regretful about. This characterization of revenge porn is exactly the victim blaming and minimization of harm inflicted that I was talking about. Consenting to film a sex act is not consenting to have it published to the wider world.
  - tharne 5y ago
    > This characterization of revenge porn is exactly the victim blaming and minimization of harm inflicted that I was talking about. While it certainly isn't minimal in terms of the harm inflicted, it very much is minimal compared to the kinds of things that police departments and courts are already dealing with. There's also a weird and very unproductive ethos that's evolved around the concept of victim blaming. Something my not be your fault, but that doesn't mean we're all free to be careless with zero chance of consequences. If I'm walking through a neighborhood at night that I know to be dangerous, it would be very foolish of me to be carrying several thousand dollars of cash on my person. That does not mean it's my fault if I get mugged and lose my money - it's purely the mugger's fault. However, my actions were stupid and I should have known better. Both those things can be true.
    - rectang 5y ago
      Many judges, police, and prosecutors agree with you that the victims "should have known better" and that their cases are not important in the grand scheme of things, which is why it is more difficult at every step of the way to get any sex crime through the court system. Many in the media also agree with you. So do many in the wider society. (Including many in the ridiculously male-dominated HN.) All of these factors contribute to why if a victim even goes to court, not only is the likelihood of actual consequences for the perpetrator absurdly low, but the experience of going down that path will be horrible. Instead of sympathy, they get an avalanche of contempt and shame dumped on them.
      - robertlagrant 5y ago
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 5y ago
  > In fact I don't know a single person in real life who was a victim of a burglary or auto theft where the perpetrator was caught, save for those cases like a car jacking where significant violence was involved. Me! My car was broken into and my audio deck was stolen. I had to report the crime to the police for insurance purposes. I didn't even give a proper description of my deck but the police called me back a few weeks later saying they found it inside a stolen car and mailed it back to me. But maybe violence had occurred, .. maybe some shaddy shit went on with that stolen car that led them to investigate it.
  - tharne 5y ago
    That's fantastic that you got your stuff back. I'm very happy that my absolutist statement was proven wrong in this case.
giantg2 5y ago
"The court system's responsiveness to sex crimes could be greatly improved if we had the collective will to do so. But the problem is both in the courts specifically (because of who the judges are, and who the legislators who write our laws are), and also the wider world." Responsiveness could be improved on just about any crimes if we had the will to do so. Just look at how many murders go unsolved (about 38% unsolved). Then look at the difference in response the system makes when it's some nobody whose murder didn't even make the news vs a cop/judge/[system participant] who was murdered. Frankly, who the people are that comprise the system are doesn't matter. The system is not appropriately sized to handle current criminal and civil case volumes. In many cases you wait years for trials. A majority of people accept plea deals, including the innocent. There's very little justice in the system. Between 2 and 10 percent if the incarcerated are wrongly convicted. I assume this is even higher for plea deals that avoid jail time. And on victim blaming, both "sides" do it. It just depends on which issue it is.
- rectang 5y ago
  > Frankly, who the people are that comprise the system are doesn't matter. The fact that the system cannot cope with the volume of cases means that the people who are in a position to prioritize which cases move forward is critical. That's the very nature of selective enforcement.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    And that's largely irrelevant to the topic at hand (revenge porn) as emotional crimes will always be at a lower priority than violent and physical crimes. Selective enforcement (law enforcement or prosecutorial discretion) is a larger issue that should be addressed. By unevenly enforcing the law, they are likely exhibiting biases, they will end up eroding what trust there is in the system, and it will allow bad laws to continue to stand (if everyone was being screwed over then they would demand the law change). Basically, we should be fixing the system, not just shifting priorities based on some individual's preference.
    - rectang 5y ago
sandworm101 5y ago
Who said the video was made without permission? That is a rare case. The far far more common situation is where both parties consented to the video at the time, but later one side uploaded/shared it without permission. Just look at all the pictures/videos from that iphone celeb hack a few years back. They all consented at the time. Many even took the pictures themselves (selfies, very common with teenagers too). The harm came far later when the material became public.
- rectang 5y ago
  > Who said the video was made without permission? Not me — that was a quote from the comment I was responding to. :) I agree with the implication that the question should have been about publishing rather than creating.
- majormajor 5y ago
  I don't know where you got "made without permission" from in the post you're responding to. This discussion appears to be about "uploaded without permission" in terms of the OP and the one you directly replied to. And then even in that even-more-obviously-bad made-without-permission case, the argument here seems to be "we can't make tools to handle these [assumed rare] cases because false positives"? Is the harm of an uploader having to follow up with a human about a false positive seen as WORSE than the harm of having these videos uploaded over and over and over...?
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  > Who said the video was made without permission? So something the legal system doesnt take into account is people changing their minds. Why do people changed their minds, because their chemistry changes, this is seen as aging or might even be a short term change like getting drunk, going through stress, even having people you dont want to know, knowing about it. So it shows even the law isnt perfect.
  - vmception 5y ago
    I would say that the legal system is open to revokable consent, it just does not currently have the capability of having that record Similar to how the legal system recognizes that verbal business contracts are valid (a form of consent), it just does not have a way of proving them essentially rendering them invalid.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lazysheepherd 5y ago
I think law and sofware are very similar in this. Basically read the parent post, except replace words of tech with law and court process ones. As you increase the number and the precision of laws, you inevitably increase false positives. First you will hit the resource issue. Secondly, you will see laws being weaponized. If you can pay a lawyer 1k/hour, you can get anyone arrested. They will find a way. More laws you have, more ways they can use. See the case of Steven Donziger: https://twitter.com/SDonziger https://twitter.com/SDonziger

tharne 5y ago

> But the problem is both in the courts specifically (because of who the judges are, and who the legislators who write our laws are), and also the wider world. I don't think this is it. It's a matter of resources. Police and courts are already so overburdened that it's hard to get enforcement on anything that isn't practically life or death. Have you or a friend ever had your apartment burglarized or a vehicle stolen? The police will show up, usually after several hours, take a statement, after which you'll never hear from them again. In fact I don't know a single person in real life who was a victim of a burglary or auto theft where the perpetrator was caught, save for those cases like a car jacking where significant violence was involved. When the police and district attorney in any given city in the U.S. are looking at double-digit unsolved homicides and God knows how many unsolved rape cases, I don't think they're going to put a high priority on the fact that there's a naughty movie out there that someone willing filmed themselves in and is now regretful about. This does not mean folks don't believe these things matter, because they do. It's that relative to what the justice system is already dealing with, these things are much less important.

iudqnolq 5y ago
When the NYPD have a guess at who did around 30% of murders, compared to the London police at 90% - and despite more funding than a small army - you have to wonder if the problem is purely resources. In fact, the vast majority of police are assigned to tasks like traffic enforcement, in part because that brings in more reliable revenue. (I'm using "guess at" to refer to clearance rate because if the cops tell a prosecutor they think you murdered someone and the prosecutor says it was obviously someone else so they're not charging you that's generally counted as cleared.)
- volkl48 5y ago
  > When the NYPD have a guess at who did around 30% of murders This is false. NYC homicide clearance rates for 2021 look to be over 70% for the year, with Q4 2021 at 78%. (worst quarter - 55%, best - 86%). https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-analysis/clearance.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-analysis/cleara... > In fact, the vast majority of police are assigned to tasks like traffic enforcement NYPD is not known exactly known for a particularly large amount of traffic enforcement, to the point that I think you'd find most residents wish they did more of it.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    30% getting away with arguably our worst crime seems like it doesn't bode well for the clearance rate of lesser crimes. I wonder if a large contributor to the higher London clearance rate is related to socioeconomic factors or surveillance laws/systems.
    - vgeek 5y ago
      At a national level, the clearance rate for murders is ~61% per https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/table-26 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-... . Property crimes are <20%. The FBI's UCR Data Explorer used to give you an easy to use breakdown of crimes and clearance rate at the national/state/metro/city level, but unfortunately they redesigned it and now it is both harder to use and presents less data. I guess that is one way to hide data that isn't favorable? There seems to be more emphasis on the danger presented to law enforcement officers, but the #1 cause of death for officers by a large margin, per https://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2021 https://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2021, has been COVID.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        Yeah, I just gave the 30% unsolved in response to the comment about NYC having 70% clearance rates on homicides.
  - 5y ago
rectang 5y ago
I agree that lack of resources is a contributing factor. > I don't think they're going to put a high priority on the fact that there's a naughty movie out there that someone willing filmed themselves in and is now regretful about. This characterization of revenge porn is exactly the victim blaming and minimization of harm inflicted that I was talking about. Consenting to film a sex act is not consenting to have it published to the wider world.
- tharne 5y ago
  > This characterization of revenge porn is exactly the victim blaming and minimization of harm inflicted that I was talking about. While it certainly isn't minimal in terms of the harm inflicted, it very much is minimal compared to the kinds of things that police departments and courts are already dealing with. There's also a weird and very unproductive ethos that's evolved around the concept of victim blaming. Something my not be your fault, but that doesn't mean we're all free to be careless with zero chance of consequences. If I'm walking through a neighborhood at night that I know to be dangerous, it would be very foolish of me to be carrying several thousand dollars of cash on my person. That does not mean it's my fault if I get mugged and lose my money - it's purely the mugger's fault. However, my actions were stupid and I should have known better. Both those things can be true.
  - rectang 5y ago
    Many judges, police, and prosecutors agree with you that the victims "should have known better" and that their cases are not important in the grand scheme of things, which is why it is more difficult at every step of the way to get any sex crime through the court system. Many in the media also agree with you. So do many in the wider society. (Including many in the ridiculously male-dominated HN.) All of these factors contribute to why if a victim even goes to court, not only is the likelihood of actual consequences for the perpetrator absurdly low, but the experience of going down that path will be horrible. Instead of sympathy, they get an avalanche of contempt and shame dumped on them.
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
8n4vidtmkvmk 5y ago
> In fact I don't know a single person in real life who was a victim of a burglary or auto theft where the perpetrator was caught, save for those cases like a car jacking where significant violence was involved. Me! My car was broken into and my audio deck was stolen. I had to report the crime to the police for insurance purposes. I didn't even give a proper description of my deck but the police called me back a few weeks later saying they found it inside a stolen car and mailed it back to me. But maybe violence had occurred, .. maybe some shaddy shit went on with that stolen car that led them to investigate it.
- tharne 5y ago
  That's fantastic that you got your stuff back. I'm very happy that my absolutist statement was proven wrong in this case.

giantg2 5y ago

"The court system's responsiveness to sex crimes could be greatly improved if we had the collective will to do so. But the problem is both in the courts specifically (because of who the judges are, and who the legislators who write our laws are), and also the wider world." Responsiveness could be improved on just about any crimes if we had the will to do so. Just look at how many murders go unsolved (about 38% unsolved). Then look at the difference in response the system makes when it's some nobody whose murder didn't even make the news vs a cop/judge/[system participant] who was murdered. Frankly, who the people are that comprise the system are doesn't matter. The system is not appropriately sized to handle current criminal and civil case volumes. In many cases you wait years for trials. A majority of people accept plea deals, including the innocent. There's very little justice in the system. Between 2 and 10 percent if the incarcerated are wrongly convicted. I assume this is even higher for plea deals that avoid jail time. And on victim blaming, both "sides" do it. It just depends on which issue it is.

rectang 5y ago
> Frankly, who the people are that comprise the system are doesn't matter. The fact that the system cannot cope with the volume of cases means that the people who are in a position to prioritize which cases move forward is critical. That's the very nature of selective enforcement.
- giantg2 5y ago
  And that's largely irrelevant to the topic at hand (revenge porn) as emotional crimes will always be at a lower priority than violent and physical crimes. Selective enforcement (law enforcement or prosecutorial discretion) is a larger issue that should be addressed. By unevenly enforcing the law, they are likely exhibiting biases, they will end up eroding what trust there is in the system, and it will allow bad laws to continue to stand (if everyone was being screwed over then they would demand the law change). Basically, we should be fixing the system, not just shifting priorities based on some individual's preference.
  - rectang 5y ago

sandworm101 5y ago

Who said the video was made without permission? That is a rare case. The far far more common situation is where both parties consented to the video at the time, but later one side uploaded/shared it without permission. Just look at all the pictures/videos from that iphone celeb hack a few years back. They all consented at the time. Many even took the pictures themselves (selfies, very common with teenagers too). The harm came far later when the material became public.

rectang 5y ago
> Who said the video was made without permission? Not me — that was a quote from the comment I was responding to. :) I agree with the implication that the question should have been about publishing rather than creating.
majormajor 5y ago
I don't know where you got "made without permission" from in the post you're responding to. This discussion appears to be about "uploaded without permission" in terms of the OP and the one you directly replied to. And then even in that even-more-obviously-bad made-without-permission case, the argument here seems to be "we can't make tools to handle these [assumed rare] cases because false positives"? Is the harm of an uploader having to follow up with a human about a false positive seen as WORSE than the harm of having these videos uploaded over and over and over...?
Terry_Roll 5y ago
> Who said the video was made without permission? So something the legal system doesnt take into account is people changing their minds. Why do people changed their minds, because their chemistry changes, this is seen as aging or might even be a short term change like getting drunk, going through stress, even having people you dont want to know, knowing about it. So it shows even the law isnt perfect.
- vmception 5y ago
  I would say that the legal system is open to revokable consent, it just does not currently have the capability of having that record Similar to how the legal system recognizes that verbal business contracts are valid (a form of consent), it just does not have a way of proving them essentially rendering them invalid.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lazysheepherd 5y ago

I think law and sofware are very similar in this. Basically read the parent post, except replace words of tech with law and court process ones. As you increase the number and the precision of laws, you inevitably increase false positives. First you will hit the resource issue. Secondly, you will see laws being weaponized. If you can pay a lawyer 1k/hour, you can get anyone arrested. They will find a way. More laws you have, more ways they can use. See the case of Steven Donziger: https://twitter.com/SDonziger https://twitter.com/SDonziger