Revenge porn should be criminalized.

I will begin with rebuttal of Con's R2 speech, and then proceed to respond to the statements they made in R3 that addressed my points. Con's points in R2 appeared to be as follows: 1) Banning revenge porn would violate free speech (first amendment). 2) Discussing revenge porn would constitute perpetrating it, and thus open those who have done nothing wrong to criminal charges. 3) Revenge porn isn't commonplace anymore. 4) Sending a picture of oneself to someone else necessarily requires that the sender forfeit any ownership of that picture; the recipient now owns it. So, to respond. 1: The first amendment, and any other freedom of speech legislation, does not guarantee freedom of every kind of speech. For instance, the following are still illegal despite the first amendment: 1) Certain kinds of false speech, such as fraud. 2) Speech which distributes illegal information, such as the identity of undercover FBI officers. 3) Slander and libel. 4) Hate speech- calling for violence against an individual or group. And a few others. The point is, freedom of speech does not (and should not) protect absolutely everything one can say or distribute- there are exceptions, and these exceptions are always because a particular kind of speech is unreasonable and harmful. In any case, I'd like to draw attention to the wording of the motion- it reads: "Revenge porn should be criminalized." Not: "Revenge porn is criminalized". Hence, even if one found Con's suggestion (that the first amendment makes revenge porn legal) convincing, this still would not count against the motion- the motion is that it *should be* illegal, not that it *is*. Con is committing an is-ought fallacy. (See source 4). 2: My understanding of the wording of the motion is that it is claiming it should be illegal to make revenge porn accessible online, rather than to point out where such material is accessible. I admit that this is ambiguous, but where a motion is ill-defined, tradition dictates the ambiguity should favour whoever did not write the motion- in this case, myself. Current laws against revenge pornography do not open individuals up to criminal liability simply for mentioning that a given example of revenge porn exists, or even posting a link to somewhere that it is available- it is only the act of making such material available which should be (and currently is) illegal. 3: Here, Con is committing an availability bias (see source 5) because they are fallaciously suggesting that revenge pornography should be legal simply because there aren't many cases of it nowadays- that examples of it are unavailable. It is precisely because revenge porn is illegal that it is not commonplace- this issue makes the case for banning revenge pornography- the ban works. 4: I'm not sure where Con got the idea that once you send a photo to someone, they then own the rights to that photo, but it is ludicrous. An example of where this is not the case is in copyright law- if a film producer were to send a copy of their film to a friend and to ask them to look the film over and give feedback, that absolutely does not give the person they sent it to the right to distribute the entire film everywhere over the internet. In short, *possession* of particular material shouldn't (and doesn't) necessitate *ownership* of that material- it still belongs to the copyright owner, which in this case, is the film producer, or the person depicted in the photograph. So, to condense Con's R3 argument into manageable slices: 1) Slander is already illegal. 2) Revenge pornography does not violate an individual's bodily autonomy. 3) Malicious intent is difficult to prove. 4) Not all malicious behaviour is illegal. Now, to respond: 1: Yes, that's kind of my point- Con defined revenge pornography: "...in order to cause them distress or embarrassment." such that it always constitutes slander. Slander should remain illegal, and I've not seen Con attempt to argue otherwise. Revenge pornography should remain illegal because it constitutes slander, and slander should remain illegal. 2: Revenge pornography *DOES* constitute a violation of bodily autonomy. Con fallaciously equates consenting to an individual viewing a photo of oneself to consenting to that photo being distributed all over the internet. Clearly, the two are not equivalent things. By analogy, would one consider consenting to having sexual relations with one person to be equivalent to having sexual relations with anyone who wanted them? Clearly, the presence of consent for one person in one context does not constitute consent for all persons regardless of context. 3: Yes, malicious intent is difficult to prove. However, making pornographic images available without the consent of the individual(s) depicted in them should constitute revenge pornography regardless of whether the intent was malicious (which, if it's come to a lawsuit, it probably was) or not. One needn't prove malicious intent in order to prosecute an individual for revenge pornography, just as one needn't prove malicious intent in cases of slander- only that a harmful act took place. 4: I agree. Not all malicious behaviour is (or should be) illegal, but behaviour which is unreasonably harmful as well as being malicious should be illegal. So-called "white lies" aren't illegal because they're basically harmless, though disagreeable. Fraud is illegal because it is very harmful. Likewise, revenge pornography should remain illegal because it is harmful to the individual being targeted. So, in summary: 1) Banning revenge pornography would not conflict with freedom of speech legislation. 2) Only the act of making revenge pornography available where otherwise it is not should be illegal- those who have done nothing wrong aren't (and shouldn't be) punished. 3) Revenge pornography is bad, and legislation banning it has proven effective. 4) Sharing a photo with someone does not constitute forfeiting copyright of that photo. 5) Revenge porn is slander, and as such should remain illegal. 6) Revenge porn violates an individual's autonomy, and as such should remain illegal. 7) Not all malicious behaviour should be illegal, but all unreasonably harmful behaviour should be. Revenge pornography is unreasonably harmful. Sources: [4]: http://www.txstate.edu... [5]: http://www.businessdictionary.com...