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posted by janrinok on Monday January 01 2018, @12:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the punishing-the-victim dept.

Child porn law goes nuts: 14-year-old girl charged for nude selfie

A 14-year-old girl is facing charges in Minnesota juvenile courts that could lead to her being placed on a sex offender registry—all for taking a nude selfie and sending it to a boy at her school. Prosecutors say that she violated Minnesota's child pornography statute, which bans distributing sexually explicit pictures of underaged subjects. But a legal brief filed this week by the ACLU of Minnesota says that this is ridiculous. Charging a teenager for taking a nude selfie means the state is charging the supposed victim—an absurd result that the legislature can't have intended when it passed Minnesota's child pornography statute, the ACLU argues.

The case is being heard by a juvenile court in Rice County—about an hour south of the Twin Cities. Because this is juvenile court, there's a lot we don't know including the name of the teenager. We don't even know if the selfie in question was a photo or a video. What we do know comes from the ACLU's legal brief, which includes a brief description of the case. According to the ACLU, the anonymous teen sent a nude selfie to a classmate over Snapchat. The recipient apparently took a screenshot of the message and shared it with others at school without the girl's consent. One of the classmates alerted the police in Faribault, Minnesota, which is presumably where the girl goes to school.

Officials decided to charge the girl with the "felony sex offense of knowingly disseminating pornographic work involving a minor to another person." An adult convicted of this crime can face up to seven years in prison. As a 14-year-old, the girl in this case isn't facing a criminal prosecution in adult court and won't face the harsh sentence an adult might face. The problem, the ACLU notes, is that if she's found guilty she is likely to be placed on a sex offender registry, where she would face the same stigmas as someone who commits violent sex crimes. That could lead to difficulties finding a job or obtaining housing. The ACLU's brief doesn't mention whether the boy was charged for distributing the girl's photo to other classmates.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @01:51AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @01:51AM (#616303)

    The world has gone mad! 14 and put on a registry for sending pictures of herself, education is the real answer here. What kind of parent gives their child a smart phone without giving them the talk?

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by tftp on Monday January 01 2018, @02:00AM (3 children)

    by tftp (806) on Monday January 01 2018, @02:00AM (#616306) Homepage

    What kind of parent gives their child a smart phone without giving them the talk?

    14 - 16 is a very difficult age, especially for girls. Children at this age believe that they know all, and their parents are stupid. In reality it's the other way around. Talking to them at this time is not very effective, they don't listen to old fools.

    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday January 01 2018, @02:17AM

      by sjames (2882) on Monday January 01 2018, @02:17AM (#616309) Journal

      To be fair, they see dangerous kooks like the prosecutor and too many school officials running around and their parents not telling them to sit down and shut up. A certain amount of skepticism on their part is to be expected. They lack sufficient life experience to decide which parts to be skeptical of.

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @06:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @06:39AM (#616368)

      "Talking to them at this time is not very effective, they don't listen to old fools."

      Fair enough. Don't give them a phone.

    • (Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Monday January 01 2018, @08:04PM

      by SanityCheck (5190) on Monday January 01 2018, @08:04PM (#616494)

      I am not looking forward to this age. God knows I was a lot smarter than my peers when I was 14-16, but even I did some dumbass shit.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @07:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @07:52PM (#616490)

    This is one example of bullshit that could be dealt with by the Supreme Court under that thing called "free speech". Unfortunately, I doubt that they would fix the problem. Too many people confuse sexual abuse with images of sexual abuse.

    Banning possession of CP makes the problem worse. While production of CP is obviously wrong as it involves child abuse, possession or non-commercial distribution shouldn't be criminal. If mere possession of CP was legalized, many more child abusers would be caught (because people would recognize them). As it stands today, anti-CP laws protect the child abusers who make child porn, not the children. The harm from sexual exploitation can't be lessened by removing the images. And the banning of child pornography does what it was intended to do: Erase the record of child abuse so that the real abusers aren't caught. Think this is a joke? I bet those in power have plenty of incentives to keep this issue under the rug.

    But another thing, people taking nude selfies of themselves isn't child abuse at all, regardless of age. They aren't being abused, and whether or not someone gets hard off it doesn't change that.

    Sense probably wont prevail, people aren't smart enough to realize the heavenly deity they believe in isn't real, do you honestly think they could figure out that their anti-CP madness is actually harmful? I doubt it.