Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #482

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Sending Unsolicited Dick Pics Is Now Illegal In Texas, And Could Result In A $500 Fine
By Rachel Hosie
Sending an unso- licited dick pic could now land you with a $US500 fine and a criminal record – if you’re in Texas.
The state has introduced a new law that means sending someone a nude lewd to which they didn’t consent, whether on a dating app, messenger, or even AirDrop, is now illegal.
As of Saturday, electronic trans- mission of sexu- ally explicit images or video is considered a Class C misde- meanour, result- ing in a fine of up to $US500, Fox News reports.
The law has come into play following a cam- paign by female- focused dating
app Bumble, whose headquar- ters are in Austin, Texas, in collabo- ration with state Rep. Morgan Meyer of Dallas.
According to Fox, Meyer said: “They had a number of people who were using the app com- plaining about the sending of these images
and they quickly realised there was no recourse.
“There was noth- ing that could be done. It wasn’t a criminal offence – although it was definitely digital sexual harass- ment.”
Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd originally got in touch with
Morgan with the proposal.
“I’d been hearing about this issue for years from girlfriends and coworkers who would walk through public places and get lewd photos AirDropped onto their phones and even from a close family friend who was
just a teenager when she got her first unsolicited photo from a boy her age,” Wolfe Herd wrote
for Cosmoolitan i n April 2019, cit- ing the figure that 78% of mil- lennial women have received an unwanted dick pic.
“I hated that there was no real
accountability, and that this dig- ital world we spend all our time in is basi- cally a society with no rules.”
Wolfe Herd explained that Bumble started working with lob- byists and state reps in Texas to make a change.
And that change has now come into action.
Texas isn’t the first state to introduce laws
around the issue: in South Carolina, it’s against the law to send any sort of unsolicited lewd content, Fox reported.
In New York, sim- ilar legislation has been pro- posed to make so-called cyber- flashing illegal, the New York Times reports.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine