Authorities worry sexting could change child porn laws after a series of long debates on the matter. The culprit: a couple of high school students in Texas, who took naked pictures of themselves and sent the files to each other.
Sending naked pictures, videos or other similar materials of children is regarded and labeled as child porn by existing laws. Not for too long, some U.S. states may be tempted to say, considering the highly large number of teenagers, who may be perpetrators of child porn through selfies.
This is the conclusion that authorities have reached after carefully analyzing the case of young couple in Texas. The two 17-year-old lovers thought words were not enough to spice up their relationships and decided to take things a little bit further by exchanging naked selfies.
A picture is worth a thousand words and this is the exact conclusion that police officers have reached after searching through the teenagers’ phones. They took the case to the court hoping the story would be over in a couple of weeks. Much to their surprise, the trial lasted for years until the judge was finally able to determine the position of the two minors in the child porn case.
Normally, naked pictures of minors account as evidence for child pornography, but the two teenagers hadn’t been forced by adults to take pictures of themselves. Moreover, they were also the ones, who sent the pictures, so there was really no one to blame for pornography, but themselves.
Consequently, the judge had to consider the teenagers both child porn victims and its perpetrators, so the correct punishments would be applied. At the end of the case, the high school lovers received punishments that were valid for adults, as well as for minors.
Even though the Texas case came to an end, questions on sexting and the legal background surrounding it still remain. Authorities are generally afraid to make rules more permissive, but they are now forced to do so by the new reality. Some Texas states provide the same punishments for sexting as for misdemeanor and their example may soon be followed by many other U.S. states.
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