The Supreme Court has a texting case that will be heard in the 2010 session that will decide some interesting questions of emerging technologies law. —- Which can be boiled down thus — “We gonna find out if sextin’ is legal yo!”
According to Wikipedia – Sexting: “is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, primarily between mobile phones.”
This is just the evolution of cyber-sex. The difference is that you’re using a cell, and that you actually know the person on the other side. The other person can’t fool you and say they’re “14/f/ny haha lol” when they’re actually 54/m/scranton
It isn’t clear where or when sexting originated from but we can probably assume it wasn’t Utah. The first high-profile example I can recall was the High School Musical scandal, or when Vanessa Hudgens sent a bunch of nude pictures to her boyfriend, Zac Efron. Hudgens is, of course, a girl and therefore lacks the foresight to understand that as easily as she sent them to Efron, they could then be sent just as easily to me. Or at least, someone cool in Efron’s inner-circle.
Last April, CNN did a typically toothless expose on sexting. This particular story seems to have been motivated by the premise that putting the word “sexting” as a tag would generate a lot of traffic.
I read a few of the user comments for this story. Normally, I don’t read any user comments because my brain cannot reconcile the fact that I live on the same planet as so many morons. Although amazingly ridiculous, my favorite user comment for the CNN piece is this one:
“NO NO NO. Evidently we have no rights anymore. If a teenager chooses to send pictures of themselves naked then that’s (sic) there business. If the person receiving (sic) those pictures is offended then they can go to the police and press charges for indecent exposure. If anyone should be charged with a crime in this situation it should be the kids parents.” – Waylon
Despite Waylon’s central Kentucky-esque understanding of the law, it is most definitely other people’s business (re: the police, parents) if a teenager sends nude photos of themselves to their friends. In fact, I’m going to give Waylon the benefit of the doubt here and assume that his outrage over the prosecution of “teenagers” is limited to teenagers over the age of 18. If not, Waylon would be arguing that it’s no one’s business if a 13 or 14-year old wants to send nude photos of themselves. I guess in that case it would still be only be one person’s business; of course that person is Satan.
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RIP Brittany Murphy
Here is the story. It sucks so hard when people so young go like this.
