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People have been using media to talk about sex for a long time.

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Love letters, phone sex, racy polaroids.

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There's even a story of a girl who eloped with a man that she met over the telegraph in 1886.

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Today we have sexting

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and I am a sexting expert.

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Not an expert sexter--

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(Laughter)

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Though, I do know what this means

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and I think you do too!

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(Laughter)

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I have been studying sexting since the media attention to it began in 2008.

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I wrote a book on the moral panic about sexting,

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and here's what I found:

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Most people are worrying about the wrong thing.

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They're trying to just prevent sexting from happening entirely,

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but let me ask you this:

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as long as it is completely consensual, what's the problem with sexting?

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People are into all sorts of things that you may not be into,

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like blue cheese or cilantro.

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(Laughter)

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Sexting is certainly risky, like anything that's fun,

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but as long as you're not sending any image to someone who doesn't want to receive it,

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there's no harm.

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What I do think is a serious problem is when people share private images of others without their permission,

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and instead of worrying about sexting,

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what I think we need to do is think a lot more about digital privacy.

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The key is consent.

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Right now people are thinking about sexting without really thinking about consent at all.

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Did you know that we currently criminalize teen sexting?

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It can be a crime because it counts as child pornography

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if there's an image of someone under eighteen,

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and it doesn't even matter if they took that image of themselves

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and shared it willingly.

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So we end up with this bizarre legal situation

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where two 17-year-olds can have sex in most U.S. states,

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but they can't photograph it.

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Some states have also tried passing sexting misdemeanor laws,

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but these laws repeat the same problem

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because they still make consensual sexting illegal.

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It doesn't make sense to try to ban all sexting to try to address privacy violations.

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This is kind of like saying, "let's solve the problem of date rape by just making dating completely illegal."

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Most teens don't get arrested for sexting, but can you guess who does?

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It's often teens who are disliked by their partners parents,

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and this can be because of class bias, racism, or homophobia.

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Most prosecutors are, of course, smart enough not to use child pornography charges against teenagers,

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but some do.

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According to researchers at the University of New Hampshire,

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seven percent of all child pornography possession arrests are teen sexting consensually with other teens.

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Child pornography is a serious crime

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but it's just not the same thing as teen sexting.

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Parents and educators are also responding to sexting

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without really thinking too much about consent.

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Their message to teens is often just don't do it,

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and I totally get it.

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There are serious legal risks and of course that potential for privacy violations.

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And when you were a teen, I'm sure you did exactly as you were told, right?

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You're probably thinking, "My kid would never sext,"

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and that's true; your little angel may not be sexting

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because only 33 percent of 16 and 17-year-olds are sexting.

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But, sorry, by the time they're older

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the odds are that they will be sexting.

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Every study I've seen puts the rate above 50 percent for 18 to 24-year-olds.

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And most of the time, nothing goes wrong.

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People asking me all the time things like,

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"isn't sexting just so dangerous, though?

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You wouldn't leave your wallet on a park bench.

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You expect it's going to get stolen if you do that, right?"

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Here's how I think about it:

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Sexting is like leaving your wallet at your boyfriend's house.

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If you come back the next day and all the money is just gone,

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you really need to dump that guy.

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(Laughter)

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So instead of criminalizing sexting to try to prevent these privacy violations,

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instead we need to make consent central to how we think about that circulation of our private information.

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Every new media technology raises privacy concerns;

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in fact, in the U.S. the major first major debates about privacy

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were in response to technologies that were relatively new at the time.

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In the late 1800s, people were worried about cameras, which were just suddenly more portable than ever before,

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and newspaper gossip columns.

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They were worried that the camera would capture information about them,

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take it out of context, and widely disseminate it.

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Does that sound familiar?

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It's exactly what we're worrying about now with social media, drone cameras, and of course, sexting.

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And these fears about technology, they make sense

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because technologies can amplify and bring out our worst qualities and behaviors.

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But there are solutions and we've been here before with a dangerous new technology.

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In 1908, Ford introduced the Model T car.

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Traffic fatality rates were rising; it was a serious problem.

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It looks so safe, right?

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(Laughter)

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Our first response was to try to change drivers' behavior,

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so we developed speed limits and enforced them through fines.

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But over the following decades we started to realize

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that the technology of the car itself is not just neutral.

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We could design the car to make it safer.

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So in the 1920s we got shatter-resistant windshields,

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in the 1950s, seat belts, and in the 1990s, air bags.

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All three of these areas, laws, individuals, and industry, came together over time to help solve the problems that a new technology causes

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and we can do the same thing with digital privacy.

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Of course, it comes back to consent.

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Here's the idea:

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before anyone can distribute your private information,

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they should have to get your permission.

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This idea of affirmative consent comes from anti-rape activists

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who tell us that we need consent for every sexual act.

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And we have really high levels of consent in other areas.

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Think about having surgery.

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Your doctor has to make sure that you are meaningfully and knowingly consenting to that medical procedure.

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This is not the type of consent with like an iTunes terms of service

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where you just scroll to the bottom and you're like agree, agree, whatever.

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(Laughter)

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If we think more about consent, we can have better privacy laws.

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Right now we just don't have that many protections.

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If your ex-husband or your ex-wife is a terrible person,

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they can take your nude photos and upload them to a porn site.

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It can be really hard to get those images taken down

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and in a lot of states, you're actually better off if you took the images of yourself

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because then you can file a copyright claim.

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(Laughter)

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Right now if someone violates your privacy, whether that's an individual or a company or the NSA,

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you can try filing a lawsuit, but you may not be successful

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because many courts assume that digital privacy is just impossible

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so they're not willing to punish anyone for violating it.

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I still hear people asking me all the time,

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"isn't a digital image somehow blurring the line between public and private because it's digital, right?"

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No, no!

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Everything digital is not just automatically public.

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That doesn't make any sense.

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As NYU legal scholar, Helen Nissenbaum, tells us,

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we have laws and policies and norms that protect all kinds of information that's private,

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and it doesn't make a difference if it's digital or not.

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All of your health records are digitized

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but your doctor can't just share them with anyone.

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All of your financial information is held in digital databases

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but your credit card company can't just post your purchase history online.

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Better laws could help address privacy violations after they happen,

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but one of the easiest things we can all do is make personal changes to help protect each others' privacy.

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We're always told that privacy is our own sole, individual responsibility.

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We're told, "Constantly monitor and update your privacy settings."

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We're told, "Never share anything you wouldn't want the entire world to see."

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This doesn't make sense.

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Digital media are social environments

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and we share things with people we trust all day, every day.

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As Princeton researcher, Janet Vertesi, argues,

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our data and our privacy,

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they're not just personal, they're interpersonal.

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So one thing you can do that's really easy is just start asking for permission before you share anyone else's information.

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If you want to post a photo of someone online, ask for permission.

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If you want to forward an email thread, ask for permission.

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If you want to share someone's nude selfie, obviously, ask for permission!

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These individual changes can really help us protect each others' privacy,

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but we need technology companies on board as well.

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These companies have very little incentive to help our privacy

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because their business models depend on us sharing everything with as many people as possible.

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Right now, if I send you an image, you can forward that to anyone that you want.

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But what if I got to decide if that image was forwardable or not?

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This would tell you, "You don't have my permission to send this image out."

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We do this kind of thing all the time to protect copyright.

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If you buy an ebook, you can't just send it out to as many people as you want,

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so why not try this with mobile phones?

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What you can do is we can demand that tech companies add these protections to our devices and our platforms as the default.

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After all, you can choose the color of your car, but the airbags are always standard.

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If we don't think more about digital privacy and consent, there can be serious consequences.

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There was a teenager from Ohio.

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Let's call her Jennifer for the sake of her privacy.

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She shared nude photos of herself with her high school boyfriend thinking she could trust him.

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Unfortunately, he betrayed her and sent her photos around the entire school.

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Jennifer was embarrassed and humiliated,

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but instead of being compassionate, her classmates harassed her.

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They called her a slut and a whore and they made her life miserable.

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Jennifer started missing school, and her grades dropped.

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Ultimately, Jennifer decided to end her own life.

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Jennifer did nothing wrong.

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All she did was share a nude photo with someone that she thought that she could trust.

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And yet, our laws tell her that she committed a horrible crime equivalent to child pornography.

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Our gender norms tell her that by producing this nude image of herself, she somehow did the most horrible, shameful thing.

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And when we assume that privacy is impossible in digital media, we completely write off and excuse her boyfriend's bad, bad behavior.

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People are still saying all the time to victims of privacy violations,

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"What were you thinking?

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You should've never sent that image."

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If you're trying to figure out what to say instead, try this:

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imagine you've run into your friend who broke their leg skiing.

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They took a risk to do something fun, and it didn't end well.

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But you're probably not going to be the jerk who says,

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"Well, I guess you shouldn't have gone skiing then!"

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If we think more about consent, we can see that victims of privacy violations deserve our compassion,

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not criminalization, shaming, harassment, or punishment.

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We can support victims, and we can prevent some privacy violations

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by making these legal, individual, and technological changes.

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Because the problem is not sexting, the issue is digital privacy

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and one solution is consent.

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So the next time a victim of a privacy violation comes up to you,

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instead of blaming them, let's do this instead:

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let's shift our ideas about digital privacy and let's respond with compassion.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)