People who have naked or sexually explicit images of them posted online, without their consent, may soon be able to seek justice.
State Senator Judy Schwank, D-11th District, is pushing a bill that would make so-called “revenge porn” a crime.
A Central Pennsylvania victim of “revenge porn,” who we’re calling Nicole to conceal her identity, said she was victimized when she was just 18.
“It’s still in the back of my mind,” she said. “That someone could see that and be like, ‘I know her,’ and then the world just goes crumbling down again.”
She says her ex-boyfriend secretly recorded her performing a sexual act and used the video as blackmail to keep her in the relationship.
“He started threatening me with it. Telling me if you don’t do as I say, I’m going to send it to your dad, I’m going to send it to your mom, I’m going to send it to your friends,” she said.
Nicole said he also threatened to post it online.
“Once it’s on the internet, it’s there. There’s no taking it back,” she said.
But Sen. Schwank’s bill could give victims like Nicole the chance to fight back.
The bill would make the online posting of naked or sexually explicit images of former intimate partners a second degree misdemeanor, or a third degree felony, if the victim is a minor.
“Our bill will make sure that it deters that kind of behavior and we’ll be working to watch this on the federal level, so that the websites that actually host this kind of material can also be eliminated,” Schwank said at a news conference Wednesday.
Nicole says if the law had been in place when she was victimized, she would have definitely gone to the police.
“I would’ve went to them and said, ‘He did this,”‘ she said. “‘I didn’t know, I didn’t give consent for him to do this. Do something.’ Because it makes you feel like less of a person, when someone you give yourself to, does that.”
Currently, California and New Jersey are the only states with a similar law on the books. But Sen. Schwank said several other states, including New York and Delaware are considering their own bills.