Oregon outlawed revenge porn in 2015, but today the first person has been convicted of the crime in the state. Benjamin Barber, 31, was sentenced to six months in jail for posting sex tapes of him and an ex on a porn site without their permission.
Barber was charged with five counts of unlawful dissemination of an intimate image, but he argued that the videos were made with both people’s intent to post them. “Well OK, so if I go saying that I want to make porn, get paid for making porn, and then complain that the porn I asked people to pay me for is then public, do I have a right to be embarrassed?” he asked.
Currently, 34 states and Washington, D.C. have laws against revenge porn, or sharing pornography publicly without the consent of the people in it. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Pornhub have banned the posting of revenge porn on their sites and made it easier for victims to report. However, since laws vary from state to state, it’s easy for attackers to never face punishment.
This summer, Congress introduced the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, which would make revenge porn a federal crime. It states that anyone who uses the mail or internet to post pornography “with reckless disregard for the person’s lack of consent to the distribution shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years or both.” No action has been taken on the act since August, when it was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations.
