Federal Bill Would Criminalize Revenge Porn Websites 328
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a thought-provoking article at TechDirt: "My own representative in Congress, Jackie Speier, has apparently decided to introduce a federal 'revenge porn' bill, which is being drafted, in part, by Prof. Mary Anne Franks, who has flat out admitted that her goal is to undermine Section 230 protections for websites (protecting them from liability of actions by third parties) to make them liable for others' actions. Now, I've never written about Franks before, but the last time I linked to a story about her in a different post, she went ballistic on Twitter, attacking me in all sorts of misleading ways. So, let me just be very clear about this. Here's what she has said: '"The impact [of a federal law] for victims would be immediate," Franks said. "If it became a federal criminal law that you can't engage in this type of behavior, potentially Google, any website, Verizon, any of these entities might have to face liability for violations.' That makes it clear her intent is to undermine Section 230 and make third parties — like 'Google, any website, Verizon... face liability.'"
Re:Freedom of Speech? (Score:4, Informative)
The main court case in People vs Larry Flynt is about the right to mock public figures, in that case Jerry Falwell. It had nothing to do with pornography.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell
Re:Freedom of Speech? (Score:5, Informative)
The first amendment guarantees that my speech an never (legally) be restricted, constrained, repressed, silenced, censored, etc. by the government. Never.
The Supreme Court has ruled otherwise. Guess who is the Constitutionally appointed authority on the Constitution?
Re:Freedom of Speech? (Score:3, Informative)
Guess who is the Constitutionally appointed authority on the Constitution?
There is no constitutionally appointed authority on the constitution. John Marshall claimed that for the court in Marbury v. Madison [wikipedia.org].
Re:Freedom of Speech? (Score:5, Informative)
So far, virtually all the discussion on this topic has centered around the rights of the victim. I apologize for responding to you personally, but you have the most visible post continuing the "wrong" discussion here.
The problem here has nothing to do with whether or not we should condemn the concept of "revenge" porn, but rather, whether a website should bear liability for content posted by a third party. That should scare the hell out of all of us, liberal or conservative, pro-porn or feminist, rich or poor.
Look beyond porn for the implications of this - Should Amazon bear criminal liability for allowing a joking review that says "this blender turns lead into gold" to remain? Should Yelp need to fact check every single review of some rat-trap motel or suffer liability for defamation? If a blogger dares to criticize Italian or French judges for their sham of a legal system, should Wordpress' CEO (or given what I just said, Dice's CEO) go to prison? And those don't even get into the issue of search engines, where literally everything on the internet can show up - Do we really expect Google to bear the burden of making sure no one has posted something incorrect or illegal on the entire internet?
If so... Goodbye, Internet (at least in the US - Which still effectively means "Goodbye, Intenet"). Section 230 means more than a loophole for pesky websites to intentionally look the other way - It makes the entire concept of public participation in a shared discussion possible.
Re:Freedom of Speech? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure about the constitutionality, but as far as right to contract and private property rights go, if said pornographic images were given under the express condition that they not be distributed, a violation of the contract would constitute a case for fraud. Of course, most people would make such an arrangement verbally, making it harder to prove in court. Ultimately, though, people need to be accountable for their own actions: if you don't want to be a "victim" of revenge porn, be careful about how you give it out and to whom. As bad as revenge porn is, unprincipled government intervention to fix the problem will almost certainly be worse.