With an Australian website that shared thousands of images of naked girls and women having been exposed in recent weeks, the need for updated legislation has been raised.
Creating a Change.org petition last week, Red Heart Campaign founder Sherele Moody has said the need to introduce laws that protect victims of online harassment was now more important than ever and called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Minister for Women Michaelia Cash to ensure changes were made.
“When people start X-rated internet sites featuring stolen photos of Australian girls and women – posted by callous disrespectful porn predators – the Federal Government and police are powerless to act,” she wrote.
Red Heart campaigner Sherele Moody. Source: Facebook.
"No one is charged and prosecuted - not the operators, not the boys and men who elicit these images from vulnerable teenage girls and women and post them onto the internet and not the sickos who get off on these photos."
The site contained several folders that grouped the nude photographs into categories such as geographical location, schools, race, and even by an individual’s name. The site has been removed since Mamamia first reported on it, but many believe it has simply moved to a new address.
"Once the 'illegal' image is removed, the site simply starts again. One innocent intimate selfie taken by a teen girl and given in confidence to her boyfriend who betrays that trust by posting it to a porn site can be viewed by hundreds of millions of men around the globe."
An act which, Mooney argues, should surely be illegal.
A screenshot of the now deleted Australian photo sharing site.
"We need Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to stop failing Australia's girls and women. He must take action and hold the perpetrators of these sites to account," Moody continues in the petition, which at the time of publishing was just a few hundred signatures shy of reaching its 35,000 signature target.
As of yet, no one has been charged with the creation of the site, or the possession and distribution of the images.
You can find Red Heart's full petition here.
Top Comments
The toads who distribute these images online should be registered as sex offenders. They are dangerous and there is something seriously wrong with them.
It's high time the government creates a Internet regulator and an enforceable code of ethics. Radio, Television and other broadcasters all need licenses and can have said licences revoked for breaking the law. The same standards should apply to the internet.
The Internet is covered under the same carriage laws as post and telecommunications. This country has enough laws regulating people's behaviour and once government gets power to restrict information it's record is 100% the way of expanding censorship.
If you don't want naked pictures of you on the Internet, don't send naked pictures of yourself over the Internet. It's that simple and the only retort I have read to this is an argument that women are just to infantile to help themselves and have to do it.
It's like the drink driving Laws, some uni wannabe has too many ciders on O week and writes herself off, now all of us can barely have a rum truffle before risking the limit. Some people need driving glasses but we don't all have to wear them do we? Where are our individual rights? I want my drink driving test! If I can slosh up to 0.08 and pass the drivers license test then stamp that reading as Passed on my license and get out of my face.
I'm aware the internet is covered under carriage laws. I support regulating it more the way Television and Radio are regulated. Site providers must have license to trade and if they fail to adhere to terms and conditions of said license they're right to publish would be revoked. A television studio could not run a show call the revenge porn hour, neither should websites be able to. The government wouldn't be restricting information per se, it would be regulating one platform - ability to speak freely existed without the internet.
"If you don't want naked pictures of you on the Internet, don't send naked pictures of yourself over the Internet"
This is victim blaming, and fails to take into account situations of photos taken through hacked webcam. Perhaps if you don't wish to be burgled, don't live in a house?
Is anyone alleging a hacked webcam? If it's a concern cannot you physically turn the camera away or cover it?
A TV can run a revenge porn hour if you put on a DVD or USB. To do that you exercise a free choice to do so. Free choice.
And yeah, if you take porno selfies and put them on the Internet, it actually is your fault, who else chose to do it? The fairy godmother?
Thanks Brads mom for stating the obvious.... I agree, if you can't pass your test at 0.0, no license. If you can only pass it at 0.02, then that's YOUR limit. If the next person can pass at 0.08 that's THEIR limit. This system would save lives by identifying people who can't handle 0.05 and preventing them from reaching that level.
Just because someone else is driving impaired due to sight it doesn't mean the rest of us need glasses.
Just because some women send nude selfies doesn't mean the rest of us need more regulation.