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posted by martyb on Saturday September 05 2015, @12:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the sense-no-makes dept.

Later this month, a North Carolina high school student will appear in a state court and face five child pornography-related charges for engaging in consensual sexting with his girlfriend.

What's strange is that of the five charges he faces, four of them are for taking and possessing nude photos of himself on his own phone—the final charge is for possessing one nude photo his girlfriend took for him. There is no evidence of coercion or further distribution of the images anywhere beyond the two teenagers' phones.

Similarly, the young woman was originally charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor—but was listed on her warrant for arrest as both perpetrator and victim. The case illustrates a bizarre legal quandry that has resulted in state law being far behind technology and unable to distinguish between predatory child pornography and innocent (if ill-advised) behavior of teenagers.

The boy is being charged with child pornography for taking pictures of himself.


[These teens were of the age of consent in North Carolina and could legally have had sex with each other. Juvenile court jurisdiction ends at age 16 in North Carolina, however, so they are being tried as adults on felony charges of possessing child porn... of themselves. -Ed.]

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday September 05 2015, @06:39PM

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Saturday September 05 2015, @06:39PM (#232696)

    It was never true. Being critical of the government is necessary if you want to have any hope of keeping your freedoms and maintaining some semblance of democracy.

    That is one reason why a free press is essential. Unfortunately, the traditional media (newspapers, TV, radio) is now anything but free, with a few corporations now controlling what was once hundreds (thousands?) of competing interests. Fortunately we have the internet for now, but that seems to lack the professional standards the media once seemed to have.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @10:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @10:00PM (#232762)

    > That is one reason why a free press is essential.

    FYI, when the first amendment was written "freedom of the press" meant freedom of anyone with a printing-press. The idea of "the press" as professional news organizations did not exist.

    > Fortunately we have the internet for now, but that seems to lack the professional standards the media once seemed to have.

    Such standards are great, but they are a very recent phenomenon. You might remember the terms "yellow journalism" and "muck-raking" from your american history class in high school.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 06 2015, @05:21PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 06 2015, @05:21PM (#233011)

      Such standards are great, but they are a very recent phenomenon. You might remember the terms "yellow journalism" and "muck-raking" from your American history class in high school.

      At least there were some others to call them out on it, and genuine scoops were sought out by genuine reporters. Now the few big media corporations essentially regurgitate the same "facts", with the talking heads on the screen all playing along.