Is this how we should handle Dick Pics?

[JimB]

If you intend to bring the weight of the law onto your side, sheppie, then you have chosen a burden of proving that the acts you accuse Ms. Sears of rise to legal definitions of those acts. Therefore, whether her description of events is accurate is extremely relevant to the terminology you repeatedly use, unless by "slander" and "defamation" is "bad things I disapprove of so they should definitely be illegal."

Uhm, she herself proudly presented that she engaged in criminal harassment and defamation. Also there's online records of her doing that.

This is a begging the question fallacy. Instead of defining the crimes and then proving her actions fit those definitions, you are saying her actions must fit the definitions you refuse to provide because she committed actions. This is like me saying that you are defaming Ms. Sears, you saying that your arguments are not defamation, and me saying they are because they're on these forums and I can see them.

 

[Hagi]

Ignoring that such a communication is almost certainly a crime in whatever part of the world we're talking about and that criminal communication should never be protected by privacy, why are we holding the recipient to a higher standard than the sender? After all, she didn't consent to receiving it; why then must she ask for the sender's consent to send it to a third party?

I think it should be.

Now that shouldn't prevent the recipient from reporting it to the police and providing it as evidence there. That wasn't what I meant. I think it's obvious different rules go there, just like pretty much every other private communication you are allowed to report them to the police, just not share them publicly.

But it should prevent the recipient from making said picture public. One crime doesn't justify another. And publicly publishing private communications is a crime.

It's polite not to share a text, I don't believe it's illegal. Doing so just breaks a social convention. When someone else drops social convention and is blatantly rude I don't think people should be expected to uphold it in return.

There's laws regarding public disclosure of private facts. If someone privately shared information with you that's clearly intended to be private, for which I do think dick pick apply, you can't share them publicly. Although obviously I'm not a lawyer and it's certainly possible a judge wouldn't consider dick pics to be private facts. All I can say is my personal interpretation of personal facts would include dick pics and from there it follows that you aren't allowed to publicly disclose them.

I personally don't think that's unreasonable. You're still allowed to bring charges against said person for harassment, you're still allowed to provide said private facts to any relevant investigations, you're still allowed to publicly disclose what happened.

 

[DefunctTheory]

No. No. No. NO.

Sheppie, for the love of God, use a dictionary. Check google. Do SOMETHING. Because those words don't mean what you think, and what you're saying simply isn't true.

I'm going to step this conversation up a notch - Let's show our work.

Telling someone that you're going to send their boss pictures of their dick could constitute criminal harassment, as could threatening to use the picture as leverage to ruin their life. Newer laws being fashioned also make it illegal to share the picture in question with the public.

Informing family members or girls friends about the sharing event is not illegal.

Except you're damaging a person's name and reputation, thus engaging in defamation. Unconsensually harassing them and their family with something that will damage them as a person (loss of job or relationship, the reasonable threat of) is defamation.

Defamation IS NOT THE ACTY OF DAMAGING SOMEONES REPUTATION. If it was, calling the police to report a crime, any crime, from robbery to murder to rape, would be illegal. Luckily for us sane people, 'snitches get stitches' is not part of any recognized judicial system.

n. the act of making untrue statements about another which damages his/her reputation. If the defamatory statement is printed or broadcast over the media it is libel and, if only oral, it is slander. Public figures, including officeholders and candidates, have to show that the defamation was made with malicious intent and was not just fair comment. Damages for slander may be limited to actual (special) damages unless there is malice. Some statements such as an accusation of having committed a crime, having a feared disease or being unable to perform one's occupation are called libel per se or slander per se and can more easily lead to large money awards in court and even punitive damage recovery by the person harmed. Most states provide for a demand for a printed retraction of defamation and only allow a lawsuit if there is no such admission of error.

The harasser can not defend against this by finding the sending of the picture inappropriate, because that is not legally relevant, since it's weird, but not a crime.

Sending dick pictures is not illegal, but neither is telling other people you've gotten dick pictures. It's you're responsibility to show that it is illegal and constitute harassment. In short, prove it.

That's like saying "You're homosexual. You flirted with me. I'll send everyone your flirts so you'll lose your job, because I find homosexuality inapropriate".

That actually is illegal in some places, as criminal harassment. It's considered a form of stalking. However, it is not defamation, unless the individual is, in fact, not gay. The reason what this thread is about does not count as criminal harassment is because it's not persistent, it does not result in financial loss, and the men in question have no reasonable reason to treat this woman as a physical threat.

And as you can tell from my example, we should never, never ever get down with that kind of reasoning. The evangelicals would have a field day destroying people's lives if that became legal.

Your example, in fact, would only apply if this woman found out where these men worked and intentionally used the dick pictures to get them fired. Did she do this?

In the United States, criminal defamation is rare. Extremely rare. Between 1965 and 2002, only 16 people were convicted of criminal defamation. Every single one of them for saying or implying something that wasn't true.

In the US, sueing that crazy woman for punitive damages in a civil suit would probably work better, yes. That would be a slam dunk case since she confessed and produced evidence herself.

All you need to win then is say you felt threatened or were distressed or damaged.

No. Civil defamation in the US is widely held to be the most difficult in the world to win. You need to prove, for starters, that the claim is untrue and that you sustained damage financially to win.

To win a defamation case, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.

Anyone suing this woman would fail two out of four of those, possibly three.

However, Emily Sears, the subject of this thread, lives in Australia. So what are the rules there?

Not necessarily important. The victims were in the US, her crimes were committed there.

The only first world country I can find that has a precedent for international claims of private (not corporate) defamation is Australia, and they have never exercised it because it is, in practice, impossible. Further more, as I said above, it's not illegal in the US either. It's up to you to find an example in law that shows its illegal. Again, prove it.

Of course Australia could launch a similar case against her because she perpetrated the offenses while in Australia. However the crimes themselves, the consequences, landed in the US.

You have failed to show any legal basis under which private communications between individuals where no falsehood is shared constitutes a crime in either the USA or Australia. Again, prove it.

Also truthfullness doesn't take away from the illegal character of the defamation. What you're referring to is if the damages done to a person are being legally justified, by the truthfullness of a legally relevant action.

Yes. It. Does. Defamation requires a falsehood, and harassment requires damages or the reasonable assumption that damages would soon follow or were intended. You've failed to show this.

As I've explain a few million times by now and explicitly stated in my last post, someone's opinion on what's apropriate, is not legally relevant.

On this, you are correct, but its your opinion that isn't relevant, because you've failed to show anything.

There it is sheppie. I've figuratively softballed this in to you. I haven't dug into the actually statues that cover this subject, but I have provided some sources. Now it's your turn. Show me something...

1. Historical precedent for the claim that defamation does not require a falsehood
2. Legal precedent for the claim that defamation does not require a falsehood
3. Any examples where similar actions have resulted in criminal charges being filled and/or punished
4. Fucking anything at all

Lay it on me, sheppie. Come on, show me. Show me anything supporting your argument.

 

[JimB]

Ignoring that such a communication is almost certainly a crime in whatever part of the world we're talking about and that criminal communication should never be protected by privacy, why are we holding the recipient to a higher standard than the sender? After all, she didn't consent to receiving it; why then must she ask for the sender's consent to send it to a third party?

I think it should be.

Now that shouldn't prevent the recipient from reporting it to the police and providing it as evidence there. That wasn't what I meant. I think it's obvious different rules go there, just like pretty much every other private communication you are allowed to report them to the police, just not share them publicly.

But it should prevent the recipient from making said picture public. One crime doesn't justify another. And publicly publishing private communications is a crime.

I don't quite understand how this answers my question of why the victim of harassment ought to have fewer options than her harasser does, unless you mean that a law has some inherent quality of goodness about it, which I disagree with. The law exists to strip freedoms from us, and it is good if the freedom stripped is in service of a good purpose; for instance, I have lost my freedom to murder you, but that's probably good because it increases the odds you won't be murdered. What good do you believe is accomplished by preventing the victim of harassment from sending evidence of that harassment to third parties in order to shame her harassers? Is it that you think conflict resolution should be monopolized by the police? I hope not, because the police ain't doing shit about it, while outing scumbags to their girlfriends seems to be working; in other words, it accomplishes the good of protecting Ms. Sears from abuse.

 

[mrdude2010]

Honestly, if you're sending unsolicited dick picks to random women, you deserve it if they track you down. It's not like when you get a message from another woman living in Anonymous Proxy who wants to hang out with you tonight.

 

[mecegirl]

There's laws regarding public disclosure of private facts. If someone privately shared information with you that's clearly intended to be private, for which I do think dick pick apply, you can't share them publicly. Although obviously I'm not a lawyer and it's certainly possible a judge wouldn't consider dick pics to be private facts. All I can say is my personal interpretation of personal facts would include dick pics and from there it follows that you aren't allowed to publicly disclose them.

I personally don't think that's unreasonable. You're still allowed to bring charges against said person for harassment, you're still allowed to provide said private facts to any relevant investigations, you're still allowed to publicly disclose what happened.

How many people would think she would be out of line for sharing an email or text if these guys threatened her or called her names? Hell yeah they want it to be private, that way they wouldn't get in any trouble. That way they wouldn't be labeled a creep. It's not considered proper to just send people naked pictures of yourself and for good reason. We aren't talking about sharing information. This isn't sexting, this is harassment.

 

[Hagi]

How many people would think she would be out of line for sharing an email or text if these guys threatened her or called her names? Hell yeah they want it to be private, that way they wouldn't get in any trouble. That way they wouldn't be labeled a creep. It's not considered proper to just send people naked pictures of yourself and for good reason. We aren't talking about sharing information. This isn't sexting, this is harassment.

It definitely is harassment. And I'm completely in favour of calling it out and reporting it.

All that being true I do believe there's no improvement for anyone by sharing the picture itself. Even criminals deserve privacy, even if they themselves violate that of others.

It's not right to murder murderers. It's not right to rape rapists. It's not right to harass harassers. Doesn't mean you should do nothing. Criminals deserve appropriate punishment, they do not deserve to be stripped of their own rights simply because they don't respect those of others. The rule of law should apply to everyone equally.

I don't quite understand how this answers my question of why the victim of harassment ought to have fewer options than her harasser does, unless you mean that a law has some inherent quality of goodness about it, which I disagree with. The law exists to strip freedoms from us, and it is good if the freedom stripped is in service of a good purpose; for instance, I have lost my freedom to murder you, but that's probably good because it increases the odds you won't be murdered. What good do you believe is accomplished by preventing the victim of harassment from sending evidence of that harassment to third parties in order to shame her harassers? Is it that you think conflict resolution should be monopolized by the police? I hope not, because the police ain't doing shit about it, while outing scumbags to their girlfriends seems to be working; in other words, it accomplishes the good of protecting Ms. Sears from abuse.

The law also guarantees certain rights for all people, even criminals. And I do think a monopoly of conflict resolution belongs to the state ( not just the police ) and if the state is inadequate then that's the area that should be improved. I do not believe anarchy is the answer. If the cops are ineffective then call out the cops.

Having your own rights violated does not give you the right to violate the rights of others, not even those violating yours.

The victim shouldn't be getting more options. It's the harasser that should be getting less options. And even without sharing the picture itself I don't see how Ms. Sears can't still contact relatives and describe what happened. Just don't share the picture, it's not yours to share even if it was received in harassment.

Do you not understand what privacy is? You can't claim that you expected privacy when you broadcast something. If you do, then you need a dictionary.

I think a private message has a clear expectation of privacy even when send to an unknown person with intent to harass. The message should be reported. The person making it should be called out. The contents of the message should not be shared.

I'm not arguing for immunity of the harasser. I'm arguing that even harassers deserve a basic right to privacy and that said right doesn't interfere with them receiving what's due.

I'm saying that the problem with harassment as it's currently happening isn't a shortage of vigilantes ripping harassers apart without any regard for the harassers's rights ( and yes, they do still have those ) in righteous anger. It's the ineffectiveness of law enforcement and online services in dealing with or preventing said harassment. That's the area that's in desperate need of improvement. That's where efforts need to be made to make people understand the seriousness of the problem.

 

[mecegirl]

How many people would think she would be out of line for sharing an email or text if these guys threatened her or called her names? Hell yeah they want it to be private, that way they wouldn't get in any trouble. That way they wouldn't be labeled a creep. It's not considered proper to just send people naked pictures of yourself and for good reason. We aren't talking about sharing information. This isn't sexting, this is harassment.

It definitely is harassment. And I'm completely in favour of calling it out and reporting it.

All that being true I do believe there's no improvement for anyone by sharing the picture itself. Even criminals deserve privacy, even if they themselves violate that of others.

It's not right to murder murderers. It's not right to rape rapists. It's not right to harass harassers. Doesn't mean you should do nothing. Criminals deserve appropriate punishment, they do not deserve to be stripped of their own rights simply because they don't respect those of others. The rule of law should apply to everyone equally.

There is no rule of law though. That's the problem. She can't just go to the cops with this and expect the behavior to stop, not just for her, but towards other women as well. So until the law catches up people will take care of the situation on their own. The law can't cover what isn't illegal and at the moment unsolicited dick pics aren't illegal. Should be, in the same way streaking/flashing is ,but they aren't. So I'm simply not down for holding a victim to a higher standard than the harasser when there is no higher authority to appeal to.

 

[mecegirl]

Doesn't this qualify as "revenge porn?" Isn't that illegal?

She should be careful, one day a guy with loads of money and no shame is going to sue the shit out of her.

Revenge porn usually covers pictures or video that was given with consent. But, a trial like that would be good for passing laws to make dick pics illegal. A good lawyer might be able to talk their way into winning, might. Good lawyers can do many things. They would have to do a good job covering for the fact that the pictures were unwanted. However the fact is that the pictures were meant to be private, because no shit... We all view sending pictures like that as creepy of course the harasser wouldn't want it shared. Either way, all it would do is call attention to the problem and get legislators ready for action.