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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
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in 1886.
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Today we have sexting,
and I am a sexting expert.
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Not an expect sexter.
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Though, I do know what this means --
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's 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 an 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
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without their permission.
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And instead of worrying about sexting,
what I think we need to do
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is think a lot more about digital privacy.
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The key is consent.
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Right now most people are thinking
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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 18
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and it doesn't even matter
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if they took that image of themselves
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 legally 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
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to try to ban all sexting
to try to address privacy violations.
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This is kind of like saying,
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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 partner's 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
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not to use child pornography charges
against teenagers, 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 teens,
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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 --
there are serious legal risks
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and of course,
that potential for privacy violations.
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And when you were a teen,
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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% of 16 and
17-year-olds are sexting.
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But, sorry, by the time they're older,
odds are they will be sexting.
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Every study I've seen puts the rate
above 50% for 18 to 24-year-olds.
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And most of the time,
nothing goes wrong.
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People ask me all the time things like,
isn't sexting just so dangerous, though,
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like you wouldn't leave your wallet
on a park bench
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and you expect it's gonna 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
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and all the money is just gone,
you really need to dump that guy.
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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
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to how we think about the 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 very 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,
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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 this sound familiar?
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It's exactly what we're worrying about
now with social media and drone cameras.
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and, of course, sexting.
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And these fears about technology,
they make sense because technologies
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can amplify and bring out
our worst qualities and behaviors.
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But there are solutions.
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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.
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It was a serious problem --
it looks so safe, right?
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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,
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we started to realize 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, seatbelts.
And in the 1990s, airbags.
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All three of these areas:
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laws, individuals,
and industry came together
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over time to help solve the problem
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 who tell us
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that we need consent for every sexual act.
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And we have really high standards
for consent in a lot of other areas.
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Think about having surgery.
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Your doctor has to make sure that
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you are meaningfully and knowingly
consenting to that medical procedure.
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This is not the type of consent with
an iTunes Terms of Service
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where you scroll to the bottom and
you're like, agree, agree, whatever.
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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
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if you took the images of yourself
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because then you can
file a copyright claim.
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Right now, if someone
violates your privacy,
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whether that's an individual or
a company or the NSA,
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you can try filing a lawsuit,
though 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
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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
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all kinds of information that's private,
and it doesn't make a difference
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if it's digital or not.
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All of your health records
are digitized but your doctor
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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
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to help protect each other's 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
Jennifer Tessie argues,
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our data and are privacy,
they're not just personal,
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they're actually interpersonal.
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And so one thing you can do,
that's really easy
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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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And 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 other's 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 protect our privacy
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because their business models depend on
us sharing everything
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with as many people as possible.
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Right now, if I send you an image,
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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 copy right.
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If you buy an e-book, 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
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to our devices and our platforms
as the default.
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After all, you can choose
the color of your car,
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but the airbags are always standard.
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If we don't think more about
digital privacy and consent,
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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
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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.
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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
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with someone she thought
that she could trust.
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And yet our laws tell her
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that she committed a horrible crime
equivalent to child pornography.
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Our gender norms tell her that
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by producing this nude image of herself,
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she somehow did the most
horrible, shameful thing.
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And when we assume that privacy
is impossible in digital media,
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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 have 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, well,
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I guess you shouldn't
have gone skiing then.
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If we think more about consent,
we can see that
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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,
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let's do this instead:
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Let's shift our ideas
about digital privacy and
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let's respond with compassion.
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Thank you.