The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Australia: Porn Ring Targets Teen Girls

Posted on | August 17, 2016 | 1 Comment

 

This development was probably inevitable:

More than 70 Australian schools are targets for a perverse pornography ring of teen boys and young men secretly swapping and exchanging graphic sexual images of female students and other nonconsenting women.
News.com.au can reveal more than 2000 images have been posted or traded by Australian members since the group began operating in December last year.
Young men use the site to nominate the specific high school or region they are phishing for nude photos from, along with the full names of girls they are “hunting”. Hundreds of individual names have appeared on “wanted” lists, including the names of sisters and entire high school friendship circles.
Once a girl’s name appears on a list, other members of the group then “contribute” by posting identifying information about the intended victim, such as her full name, face, school, home address, and phone number, along with directives like “Go get her boys!”
Any “wins” (a colloquial term referring to nude photos) of the nominated target are then uploaded or offered in exchange for a trade. Some targets are so sought after that “bounties” have been offered for any user who can post a “win”.
In one case, one user offered to trade up to 300 nude images of other victims, in exchange for a single nude photo of the one girl he was currently tracking. Another user said he had been trying to unearth nude images of a particular victim for more than five years. . . .
So far thousands of explicit, nude images of teen girls and young women have been uploaded or traded on the swap-meet site. Some high school girls are pictured performing sexual acts while wearing their school uniform. Other images on the site include graphic close-ups of victim’s genitalia and breasts, and photos of young women engaged in penetrative sexual acts.
The site has been reported numerous times to police for child pornography, but so far they say they are unable to act because the site is hosted overseas. . . .
In total the site mentions 28 high schools in [New South Wales], 18 in Queensland, 15 in Victoria, five in the ACT, two in South Australia and two in Tasmania.

Once every teenager has a cellphone, and every cellphone has a camera, what could we predict kids would do with this technology? When I first started seeing stories like this — nude photos of women posted as “revenge porn” by embittered ex-boyfriends — my reaction was the same as every other adult: “What kind of woman is stupid enough to let her boyfriend take naked pictures of her?” What I failed to understand at the time was that, in fact, many of these women were taking nude photos of themselves and sending these selfies to guys in the mistaken belief that this was “private” activity that nobody would ever know about.

Parents have got to warn their children against this kind of behavior. It’s not just nude photos, either. Too many kids fail to understand that when they are exchanging text messages or sending emails or posting things to online social media, this creates a permanent digital record. You may think you’re having a “private” conversation with your friends but (a) nothing is so private it can’t be hacked, (b) once you send a message, you can’t control what the recipient does with it, and (c) what happens if your supposed “friend” ever becomes unfriendly?

After the second Anthony Weiner scandal broke (“Carlos Danger” sexting with Sydney Leathers), I was driving in the car with my son Jefferson, who was 14 at the time, and I went on a rant: “Never think you can get away with anything like that online! Never send anyone a message that you wouldn’t want to see quoted on the front page of the New York Times!”

This problem is spiraling out of control:

Rampant teen sexting has left politicians and law enforcement authorities around the country struggling to find some kind of legal middle ground between prosecuting students for child porn and letting them off the hook.
Most states consider sexually explicit images of minors to be child pornography, meaning even teenagers who share nude selfies among themselves can, in theory at least, be hit with felony charges that can carry heavy prison sentences and require lifetime registration as a sex offender. . . .
Colorado lawmakers this week delayed a vote on creating a new misdemeanor crime of “misuse of electronic images” by teens.
Colorado’s bill was prompted by a scandal last year at a Canon City high school where more than 100 students were found with explicit images of other teens. The news sent shockwaves through the city of 16,000. Dozens of students were suspended, and the football team forfeited the final game of the season.
Fremont County prosecutors ultimately decided against filing any criminal charges, saying Colorado law doesn’t properly distinguish between adult sexual predators and misbehaving teenagers.
In a similar case last year out Fayetteville, North Carolina, two dating teens who exchanged nude selfies at age 16 were charged as adults with a felony — sexual exploitation of a minor. After an uproar, the charges were reduced to misdemeanors.

What this recent case in Australia shows, however, is that once these images of minors are created, it is difficult to prevent the images from being circulated widely through “peer-to-peer” networks. The basic principle of hacking — “Information wants to be free,” as Stewart Brand said — applies also to nude photos of teenagers. Once any such image is created, keeping it private becomes a permanent problem, and anyone who doesn’t understand this is dangerously ignorant of how technology operates. Law enforcement is playing catch-up with this problem:

“The Australian Federal Police is aware of the existence of a website which encourages users to upload images of a sexual nature. A number of these images allegedly depict nonconsenting and/or underage women,” the statement read.
“The AFP is currently liaising with its domestic and international law enforcement partners and relevant government agencies to evaluate this matter and to determine appropriate courses of action.”
While the power to shut down the site may remain out of the AFP’s hands, it warned those sharing images on the site were doing so within Australia, and they could be prosecuted.
“It is important to note that creating, accessing or distributing child pornography is a serious offence, even if you are a child yourself,” the statement read.
“Child pornography offences have a maximum penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment.”
[New South Wales] Police issued a similar statement, reminding users of the site they were in fact breaking the law by sharing explicit photographs, even if they were underage.
“They should be aware they could be arrested and charged and, if convicted, will have a criminal record,” NSW Police said.

Relying on law enforcement to prosecute these crimes after the fact is a poor substitute for preventing these crimes. Parents must warn their kids: NO NUDE SELFIES, EVER, UNDER ANY CONDITION!




 

Category: Australia, Crime

Comments

One Response to “Australia: Porn Ring Targets Teen Girls”

  1. Omens of the Impending Apocalypse : The Other McCain
    August 17th, 2016 @ 11:06 pm

    […] had I finished reporting on the Australian investigation into teenage boys sharing nude photos of minor girls than I read about yet another case, this one in […]