A Rhode Island Governor on Monday vetoed a piece of legislation intended to criminalize "revenge porn."
Revenge porn is the term given to private, sexually explicit material of someone that is posted online, typically by an ex-lover, with the intention of, at best, embarrassing that person and, at worst, destroying their life.
The bill, according to the Providence Journal, would land those found guility of uploading revenge porn with large fines and even prison sentences. "Sextorters," perpetrators who attempt to extort money out of their revenge porn victims for removal of the footage, would be liable for up to 5 years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Yet Governor Gina Raimondo, who offered the sole veto, stepped in to nix the bill's implementation, claiming "the breath and lack of clarity [of the bill] may have a chilling effect on free speech."
Revenge porn is a relatively new, yet extremely contentious topic. The act of violating someone's privacy in this manner, exposing their most intimate of moments to world is an indefensible act of sexual harassment that can cause immense psychological and reputational harm. "Criminalizing nonconsensual pornography is…appropriate and necessary to convey the proper level of social condemnation for this behaviour," argues prominent law professor, Danielle Citron.
The issue, however, that needs to be surmounted is how this criminalization can occur without trampling on the First Amendment rights of internet users. This was the problem with the Rhode Island bill. In her veto message, Governor Raimondo highlighted that the bill, "intended to curb the dissemination of private sexual material," contained an overbroad sweep. The wording of the bill, which targets "unauthorized dissemination of indecent material," is not tailored to specifically prohibit revenge porn. As Steven Brown of the ACLU Rhode Island chapter highlighted, it could even cover content of historical importance such as images of Holocaust victims or of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
Other free speech and media groups have since praised Governor Raimondo's decision. The Media Coalition and the Rhode Island Press Association highlighted the impact the bill could have on a free press. Under the bill, photojournalists, for example, could be labelled as criminals if they were unable to convince a jury their images were published "in the public interest." (A caveat of the proposed bill)
Thus, to legislate against "revenge porn," given the looseness and newness of the term, it is crucial the language of the bill is airtight in order to prevent damage done to constitutional protection online.